INJURY SETBACKS, CHEERING on from the stands, man-of-the-match shows and grasping Sam Maguire.
Jack McCaffrey’s All-Ireland senior final catalogue features varied and dramatic experiences.
2019 captured the contrasts the Clontarf man has endured. A fortnight ago he lit up Croke Park with a dazzling display that saw him weigh in with 1-3 from play and garner the leading individual honour on offer.
For Saturday night’s replay he was forced to watch on for the second half, limping out of the exchanges at the break and yet the positive end result softened any pain he may have nursed about that.
Jack McCaffrey All-Ireland final record
- 2013 – Taken off at half-time against Mayo.
- 2015 – Starts against Kerry and scores 0-1, withdrawn in 52nd minute.
- 2016 – Not involved after spending summer in Africa.
- 2017 – Tears cruciate early against Mayo and comes off in 8th minute.
- 2018 – Man-of-the-match in win over Tyrone
- 2019 – Man-of-the-match in draw against Kerry, comes off injured at half-time of replay.
“You always want to be out on the pitch playing. It’s – annoying is the wrong word – it’s challenging to be on the bench and trying to cheer on.
“But everyone has that experience. I suppose what happened me was that I tweaked my hamstring. It is quite a minor injury but it wasn’t quite letting me sprint. I went in at half-time and said to Jim and the lads, ‘Look, I can play if you want me to, but I can’t sprint’. Which renders me essentially useless.
“I got brought off. I’ve actually very rarely experienced it. I was getting subbed off and was thinking, ‘It’s fine, whoever comes in is going to be on the money and we’re going to win’.
“I had complete confidence in what was going on. The experience of doing my cruciate before in 2017, that was quite emotional because I knew something quite serious was wrong and wasn’t really sure where I stood.
This was a very minor injury and just to be there among the subs and try to stay in the moment and stay focused, it wasn’t where I wanted to be but look I wouldn’t change anything. We won, so I’d do it all again, yeah.”
The replay experience was novel for McCaffrey and one he had to adjust to. In 2016 he was looking on after stepping away from the setup for a campaign, spending that summer in Africa as part of his medicine studies in UCD.
“It was incredibly challenging. Basically all the stuff you lads write, you try and ignore but it does seep in.
“We’re all intelligent people, I played quite well in the drawn final. Analysing the game, that’s preparing as well. Whatever about the actual performance, it’s very hard to put into actual words the energy that goes into an All-Ireland Final.
“And half of it is the energy you expend trying not to get overly excited in the build-up to it. You try to keep yourself level and keep yourself focused. Then you play the game and you’re flat afterwards. For the next week if anyone asked me to kick a ball I emotionally wouldn’t be able to go out and play a game of football.
“Your two days post possibly the biggest game of your entire career and at the same time you’re 12 days away from an All-Ireland final and you’re trying to square those circles and it is very difficult.
“I found the week after the drawn game incredibly challenging. I was arriving at training and thinking, ‘Are we? Are we? This should be done, I cleared my locker out and brought everything home and now have to bring it all back up, what’s happening here?’
“It was just the fact that it was a replay and I think everyone finds it a little bit challenging in their own way.”
Dublin’s replay display was enhanced from their output in the drawn game, a match that McCaffrey termed the ‘most bizarre’ he had witnessed.
“We always aspire to basically have our best performance in our final game of the season, whenever that may be. What that idea lends itself to is increasing standards of performance throughout the year. But we didn’t play very well in the drawn final as a group.
“If you look at it, it was the most bizarre game I’ve ever seen. You watch the first 60 minutes and thank your lucky stars we are still alive, and you watch the last 10 minutes and think ‘how on earth did we not win that game of football.’
“So there was a collective sense of hurt, and you’d have to ask the lads how they individually harnessed that. You look at the semi-final; I had my hands full, back foot and Paddy Durcan did a lot of damage to us as a team. Paul Mannion and Con O’Callaghan shoot the lights out and pull us through.
“The team sits down and figures out how to close the lads down and two or three of us step up and get us over the line. The next day two or three of us are quiet and two or three other lads step up. What I love about our team is you don’t look around and go ‘if they take him out, they lose.’
“There’s a massive trust that if you aren’t doing it, you just keep working and one of the lads will get you over the line. I don’t know whatever way the lads harnessed their emotions after the first game, but it worked.”
McCaffrey also spoke of the impact his father Noel, a former Dublin player, and the rest of his family have had in shaping his career.
“Everything I do has been influenced heavily by my father and obviously I have huge respect for him but I remember when I started with Dublin in 2013 and I think I had played two Championship games and got offered a sponsorship thing, which would have involved something like this talking to the media.
“He said, ‘I will pay you whatever they are paying you to not do that’. He had this thing that ‘whoever is in the paper plays crap the next day. Just don’t do it’. I ignored that advice.
“After finals, he’s the first fella I look for and it’s always a little bit bittersweet because I never knew my grandfather, my dad’s dad, or my grandmother – I’m lucky enough to have my two grandparents (are alive) on the other side and they take such pride in what I have done.
“I watched in the lead-up to the drawn final highlights of the 1985 All-Ireland final that Kerry beat Dublin and the image at the final whistle is my father collapsing to his knees.
“He was very unfortunate never to win an All-Ireland. So I’m keenly aware of how much this means to my family and that’s a large part of why I keep going and love it.
“My mam and dad are two incredible people, and they just put us first. I’m the eldest of four, my sister Sarah, and two brothers, Conor and Niall. And my parents took time off work to bring us abroad.
“They would have worked half-time so we could always walk to school together, and all these intangible things that most parents do for their kids
“What I love in the build-up to these games is that I get a text off my mam and dad saying, ‘If football was to end, we’re really proud of you, the person you are, and where your life is going. Go out and enjoy yourself’.”
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