IT’S AN UNLIKEY midfield battle – the reigning Footballer of the Year against a two-time European Indoor 400m gold medallist – but it could happen after Michael Darragh MacAuley’s Ballyboden St. Enda’s club were paired with Ballinteer St. John’s – the home parish of David Gillick - in the next round of the Dublin Senior Football Championship.
MacAuley, of course, is no stranger to athletics himself having completed the 10km Samsung Night Run just hours after securing the National Football League Division One title with Dublin back in April.
However, this is quite a different test and after Gillick recently spoke about the prospect of marking the two-time All-Star on Second Captains, MacCauley admitted he might have to change his training regime to cope with the demands of coming up against the speedster.
“It’ll be a unique experience. I’ll have to go sprinting training or something. It’ll probably be myself or Declan O’Mahony marking him.”
“It won’t be on for a while but it’s an interesting one.
“We haven’t played Ballinteer for a while but there’d be a local rivalry there. I know a few of their lads so it should be a good game.”
One aspect of Gillick’s game MacAuley probably won’t lose too much sleep over is the Ballinteer man’s shooting. Indeed, the former athlete recently admitted to TheScore.ie he was more defensive in his mindset.
“I didn’t score sadly. In my defence I was more of a holding midfielder and I did a lot of the defensive work that allowed other players to go forward.”
And, as this video shows, there’s probably a good reason for that.