THIS TIME LAST year, Danny Sutcliffe was preparing for his first game as an inter-county footballer.
The St Jude’s star lined out on the New York half-forward line as they gave Sligo a serious fright in the Connacht SFC quarter-final, but Sutcliffe says joining Jim Gavin’s football squad was never on the cards once he returned home.
“I wouldn’t be good enough for that team,” Sutcliffe says at the launch of Kellogg’s GAA Cúl Camps. “The New York thing was when you’re away and have no-one to train with and it was getting involved with a group so that’s all that was.
“We could have ended up getting a shot at Mayo which would have been nice. Obviously, they’ve Leitrim (this year) so you’d fancy them winning (a game in Connacht) for the first time ever.”
Thankfully for new boss Pat Gilroy, he did throw his lot in with the county hurlers for 2018. A mixed league campaign came to an end in after a quarter-final defeat to the in-form Tipperary last month.
Dublin roared into an eight-point lead inside 10 minutes, but wound up losing by 11 points despite playing the entire second-half with 14 men after Ronan Maher’s dismissal.
“Looking back, it was the first time we had an extra man this year,” Sutcliffe explains.
“You could see it yourself, early on we started delivering the ball very quick, which benefitted us. We trusted lads to win it inside.
“We probably passed too much in the middle third in the second-half with the extra man. We obviously shot out of the blocks but we didn’t maintain it in the second-half.
“We’ve tried to correct something in every game. And I think we’ve gotten better in every game. So it’s consistency we’re looking for now for 70 minutes, not 55 minutes.
“We only had a week between each games. Now we have April to dissect it a bit more. We’ll bring the Cuala lads in and get the setup right now for the Kilkenny game.”
Gilroy enticed a number of exiled players such as Sutcliffe, Conal Keaney, Peter Kelly and Johnny McCaffrey back into the fold, while continuing to integrate the youngsters who emerged during Ger Cunningham’s reign.
And with a sizeable Cuala contingent still to return to the fold, Sutcliffe insists Gilroy had no dressing room cliques to address since taking charge.
“He provides a brilliant structure and a brilliant platform for us to play on. He has full belief in our players. And he wants it – as a Dublin man – just as much as the players. We obviously want to do something together as a group. And he’s provided us with a brilliant place to train. There’s a really good team ethos there.
“And we’re around the footballers during the week as well. It’s great. We have them as a marker as well. We don’t have to look to anywhere else. They’re a brilliant bunch. So we’re in a great environment where we are. Everyone’s really enjoying it.
“And at the end of the day, we’re all very good friends. You forget that you spend so much time training with the Dublin lads, more than my own club lads, so for me (dressing room cliques) were never there.
“We went in the first morning and were preparing for the Boston trip, and that was it, it started from there and it’s carried on since.
“The Cuala lads are coming in off that win and they’re going to be flying in terms of confidence and the way they’re playing, it can only add to it.
“What Pat’s going to be loving about them is they work extremely hard and I’ve probably never seen a team to tackle as well as Cuala did this year in terms of they don’t leave their hand in, the hurl never touches the helmet.
“They’re everything we want and then it’s just maybe the finer details getting together. But as a bunch of players to come in they’re really going to add to us, definitely.”
Sutcliffe is hopeful Mark Schutte rejoins the squad after spending last season with the Dublin footballers, while he doesn’t expect Con O’Callaghan to be available.
“Mark would be my best mate from school. It’s tough not to be biased and tell him. He’ll make his own mind up. He had a brilliant club final, probably his best game in a year or two. No point in me mentioning about Con, we all know that.
“In the next few weeks we’ll know. Let them go and play their club games now but you would be hoping to have Mark on board. I think Con would be out of reach. We’d love to have him obviously but Mark is the one up in the air.”
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion he’d wear the sky blue jersey again once he returned home from the States, but Sutcliffe liked what Gilroy was trying to build and jumped at the opportunity.
“I wasn’t saying I was ever going to play hurling for Dublin again,” the 25-year-old said.
“I would never make it my priority. I always want to be there if I can do it. I don’t want to be away from it now because of what we are trying to do with Pat. When I was away last year I was missing my club, I was only following my club because you are going to finish up with them anyway.
“That was most important. I just get a chance to represent them during the summer. It wasn’t a thing where I was mad to come back until I got a chance to come back in. Now I’m loving it.
“He took the football job at a tough time and he had no experience and I appreciate someone who can back themselves like that. If he’s putting himself out there, the way he did the footballers, obviously people are going to come in behind him, a man with direction is what you look to.
“He made a statement by taking the job so straight away I was enamoured by that and I wanted to be a part of it.”
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