DUBLIN FOOTBALL MANAGER Jim Gavin has insisted that the GAA’s new National Games Development Centre at Abbotstown is not the All-Ireland champions’ new training base and won’t be any time soon.
The €12m facility outside Blanchardstown was opened earlier this month and has five floodlit pitches as well as impressive dressing-rooms and a state-of-the-art gym.
It’s a plush alternative to Dublin’s current training base at the Innisfails GAA club in Balgriffin and, on paper at least, appears to meet any requirements their county teams might have.
It’s open to all GAA clubs and counties and Cavan, who will contest the Allianz Football League Division 2 final against Tyrone on Sunday, have already trained there.
But Gavin said he has no interest in using the venue and that Dublin officials will continue their attempts to source and develop their own training centre elsewhere.
Asked if he could foresee Dublin using the facilities at any point in his reign as manager, he shook his head.
“Not presently, no,” said Gavin. “We move around a bit between pitches and gyms. Dublin don’t have their own home as such for training facilities. But the situation has been good for us so we’ll keep it that way.
“It wasn’t built for us, as in the Dublin GAA, and I know already that some senior inter-county football teams have used it for challenge games and I think that’s a great initiative.
It is pretty accessible from all parts of the island. I think that’s good to see. And clubs have used it already so it’s a great facility for them. That’s where I’d see it being used.
Dublin chairman Sean Shanley has stated that the county’s minor and U21 teams are likely to train there and Bryan Cullen, former senior captain and current high performance manager, has been involved in kitting out the gym.
However, Gavin believes that the county is committed to creating its own training base, having struck out last year with a bid to purchase the Spawell complex in Templeogue.
“The officers of the Dublin GAA have quite clearly stated that and we’ve seen their ambition to build their own home,” said Gavin. “They don’t consider (Abbotstown) their training home for the development of players.
“They’re still looking for sites and hopefully that will come to fruition in the short-term rather than the longer term.
“We’re a little bit behind other counties in that regard with the challenges that the minors, the U21s and ourselves have for getting pitches during the winter season, it’s quite a challenge. So we don’t actually have a home yet and certainly that isn’t our home, nor won’t be our home.”
Neighbouring counties Meath, Kildare, Louth and Wicklow have built their own training centres though Dublin’s nomadic existence for training purposes clearly hasn’t held them back.
In Gavin’s three-and-a-half seasons in charge, they have claimed eight of the nine available league and championship trophies and are currently on a 21-game unbeaten run in those competitions.
It is a record that stacks up favourably against the Dublin team of the 1970s which set the GAA country alight and engaged in some memorable battles with Kerry, claiming three All-Ireland wins between 1974 and 1977.
“If you’re going to reference it back to the ’70s, they were a unique group,” said Gavin.
They weren’t just a unique group but they also had a unique manager (Kevin Heffernan). They’ll never be matched. That would be my opinion on it.
Dublin face Kerry again on Sunday in the Allianz League decider when they will attempt to complete the first league four-in-a-row since the Kerry side of the early 1970s. It will be a repeat of last September’s All-Ireland final and the 2011 decider, both won by Dublin.
“How the opposition approach the game and what emotional attachment Kerry will have to six months ago and if they are seeking revenge for the All-Ireland final, that is something that we never look at and is outside of our control,” said Gavin.
“All I can manage is how the Dublin team prepare and the boys have prepared diligently over the last week.”
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