THEY’LL HAVE TO overcome the formidable obstacle of St Vincent’s to reach another Dublin SFC final, but Paul ‘Pillar’ Caffrey and Na Fianna are a force to be reckoned with again.
From 1999-2001, Caffrey was in charge when the club annexed three successive county titles.
And with a new, exciting bunch of players at his disposal, former Dublin boss Caffrey is confident of making a big impact at the business end of the championship.
At the weekend, Na Fianna overcame St Judes at the quarter-final stage to set up a clash with 2013 and 2014 winners St Vincent’s.
And Caffrey, speaking to Oisin Langan on the Newstalk rewind podcast, reflected: “That’s a young Na Fianna team and we showed a lot of maturity.
“We’ve had a bad start any time we played St Judes previously and the team was focused on a good start.
“They gave us 4-0 lead and we played a lot of good football. I was very pleased with the maturity shown by a young team.
“We have a bad record against St Judes and this is a big win for this group of players.
“I thought we handled holding the ball well all through, didn’t feel nervous at any stage.
“These guys have matured a lot over the last two years, we’re in the semi-finals now and we’ll see what lies ahead of us.
“The average age of the team is 22, I think we’re the youngest team left in the competition.
“You can’t put an old head on young shoulders but this is our second year, they came through and won the League last year and they’re maturing quickly. But it’s new territory for them now.”
