Dublin’s James McCarthy unfazed by imminent road trip

One of the big compensations for Dublin, as their championship season begins next Saturday, considering the loss of two All Stars from their defence the form of James McCarthy. Two aspects of what was a deeply impressive league campaign were his versatility and counter attacking ability.

Neither of these would have been exactly news to manager Jim Gavin, for whom McCarthy was a key member of his All-Ireland under-21 winning team of 2010.

McCarthy is already on the record as saying that the sabbatical departures of Jack McCaffrey and Rory O’Carroll have forced others in the team to raise their own games a notch or two but there is a more personal sense of liberation.

Against Donegal he was asked to do a man marking job on Michael Murphy - potentially a contingency in the absence of O’Carroll - and the pace of his counter-attacking and overlapping has been to its best effect in a couple of years. Could it be that the sprinter-grade speed of fellow wing back McCaffrey, which was such a weapon for Dublin last year, in some way inhibited McCarthy from expressing himself in recent seasons?

“Yeah,” says McCarthy. “Jack played a big role for us; you could see how quick he is and how quick he moves the ball forward. It’s definitely up to myself and other guys in the back line to get the ball up. We’re never as quick as he is maybe but definitely there’s more of a chance to do it, to get the ball into the forwards.”

His status as the fastest counter-attacker in Dublin’s defence has - however unlooked for - been restored but there are so many other facets to his game. The man marking has been mentioned but McCarthy also played centrefield earlier in the league campaign. In fact there is an argument that when Gavin experimented with pairings in that sector in 2013 and brought Cian O’Sullivan from the half backs to the middle, that role of mobile centrefielder would have more obviously gone to McCarthy, who would have been as well suited to the role and given that O’Sullivan has been Dublin’s best defender in these years of plenty.

The problem for the manager was that McCarthy missed that league because of his involvement in Ballymun’s run to the All-Ireland club final, playing a key role at centrefield and then picking up an injury that delayed his return to the county team.

It’s an example of how McCarthy’s career, without being seriously disrupted, has been affected by injury. A year later he was nagged at by other problems.

“I got an operation in 2014, that November. I had a problem with my adductors and Gilmore’s so I got them done and that solved a lot of problems.”

He returned late in the spring only to sustain a foot injury in a challenge match before the championship, which meant he missed the first match against Longford and didn’t start against Kildare. This year has been different and McCarthy has been fully engaged for a league campaign that ended with a 100 per cent record and says that he’s happy with the uninterrupted involvement.

“Yeah and I’m getting older as well so you want to get as much games and enjoy them. From other years (I know) the more games you play the better football you play and I feel as though I finished the season very strong least year so you want to continue on.”

This weekend Dublin head to Kilkenny for a first championship match outside of Croke Park in 10 years. Back in 2006, the 16-year old McCarthy watched on the television as the county beat Longford in Pearse Park. He is though unfazed by the prospect of travelling to take on Laois.

“It’s actually one of the places I’ve never been. I’ve heard it’s a great big open pitch and by all accounts it’s great.

“To be honest I don’t think it’s that difficult for us. I think we’ve had a damn good record over the last few years playing away from home (in the league) so I don’t think it’s going to be a factor. Obviously if conditions are bad or something like that, then that’s more of a problem when you’re trying to play football.

“But where the pitch is, I don’t think it makes any difference to how we play our game, we’ll just try to move the ball as fast as we can into the forwards. It won’t have a bearing on how we play our game.”

Dublin haven’t retained the All-Ireland for 39 years but McCarthy believes the team have learned from the lessons of previous title defences in 2012 and ‘14.

“As each year has gone by we’ve definitely become a better team. Nobody knows everything we are trying to learn things every year and progress. We’ve seen lots of game plans tried against us now and I think we are getting better at dealing with different things.

“In 2014 we got opened for a lot of goals but I think defensively we are pretty sound so we have to keep it going now. It’s all well, being defensively sound in the league but you need to be in championship and in the heat of battle in Croke Park with big crowd it’s a lot tougher.

“You are relying more on your senses than your voice you have to be sharp but I think we have got better as we’ve gone on and we’re a tough team to play against now.”