Gifted O'Carroll spoilt for choice

LEINSTER SFC FINAL: Tom Humphriestalks to the versatile Kilmacud Crokes and Dublin star who is now concentrating on tomrorow's Leinster football final assignment

NOW IS the season of his content. If you were to be young again, young and on the cusp of things, you'd probably choose to be Ross O'Carroll. This week he was pottering around UCD between final year Arts exams with which qualification he intends to pave his way to a life as a teacher and, as he puts it himself, a GAA man.

The Dublin hurlers, for whom he is perhaps the brightest rising star, have just been taken over by a man who stilled his childish play and whom he professes to be dying to meet, Anthony Daly.

And tomorrow he turns out for his club Kilmacud Crokes in the Leinster club football final following a semi-final performance at full back which created such a buzz that it is a wonder he wasn't abducted there and then by the county selectors and surgically grafted into a number three jersey.

More than that, he could almost be the poster boy for the new GAA in Dublin. He talks of evenings on the deep southside of Dublin and being out on the road pucking a ball around with his brothers and six or seven friends. His mam, he says, is a D4 woman from a rugby background, his father would have watery enough GAA credentials himself. Yet he is typical of the success of the GAA's experiment in bringing the spirit of the parish to the suburbs.

In the space of seven days last summer Ross O'Carroll and the Dublin senior hurlers were on the end of a Leinster championship defeat to Wexford, himself and his brother Rory were on the field when Kilkenny beat Dublin in the Leinster under-21 championship and his brother Bill was playing for the Dublin minors when they exited the Leinster minor championship. It was the sort of week a family in Oulart or Ballyhale might experience.

Remarkably, like another of his heroes Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, he only started to play hurling in his first year of secondary school at Oatlands College. Two teachers, Roger Ryan and Damien Quigley, got him interested and hooked. They got him out to play and above in Crokes at around the same time, John Mitchell, an indefatigable Cork man with fine credentials, roped him into a club side. Now in a club where the divide between football and hurling is quite pronounced, Ross is the happiest of ecumenists.

"It just started off from there with the hurling but I wouldn't have a preference. Seriously I wouldn't. I wouldn't be into hurling only or the football only. I like to just be a GAA man. No point in being one thing or another thing. It only causes consternation in the club anyway. I'm playing both and long may it continue, sure it's what the club is about at the end of the day."

So that will be good news it would seem for Pat Gilroy who has virtually nobody standing in the queue of qualified applicants for the Dublin full back position.

"Ah now," says Ross, seeing where this is all going, "I had one good game. That's all. I could go out against Rhode and get skinned. I don't want to be saying much. The hurling will be big with Anthony Daly there. I can't wait to meet him, to be honest with you.

"When I got into the hurling, Clare in 1997 were a big thing for me. Reading Denis Walsh's 'The Revolution Years' and stuff reinforced it, I loved Loughnane's book too, all that passion. That team mightn't have had all the skill in the world but they had great heart."

He would have seen himself as a footballer coming up through the grades but he hit the hurling wave bang on time coming into minor year and has surfed it perfectly since then.

"Hurling really only took over after minor when we won the Leinster in 2005. It all started to change. The opportunities came my way. I loved it."

A provincial title at under-21 and an All-Ireland appearance at that grade followed as did fast elevation to the Dublin senior side. His prowess as a footballer was shelved and largely forgotten about until recently. When Dublin were beaten by Cork in the championship during the summer he took off to New York for three or four weeks and hurled up in Gaelic Park on the weekends.

He came back and played senior hurling for Crokes and intermediate football till the club were bumped out of the inter championship by St Brigid's. Then the seniors came looking for him. He was a bit player while the senior hurlers were still alive but after their county final defeat the big ball took over.

An injury to Kevin Nolan got him into the number three jersey the last day, a break he was thankful to get as he happily confesses that full back is his favourite position. He's smart enough to be aware that his last performance was a fine one.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy. Full back is a good position to play in. Pat Duggan moved me there in an intermediate game against Vincent's one day when I was filling in for somebody with an injury. I went back and stayed there.That was it really until I moved into midfield for a while but sure you need to be 6'3" these days to play midfield. Full Back? It's a good position. "

Tomorrow in Parnell Park is a stern examination of a Crokes team who would be the first to confess they haven't yet managed to look like the sum of their considerable parts. Their displays through Dublin were solid and competent and generally sufficient unto the day. Tomorrow will give a good indication as to whether or not they are a side who have timed their run well with St Patrick's Day in mind.

"Perhaps we haven't clicked completely, but hopefully Sunday will be the day," says Ross before offering the GAA's man's perfect eulogy to forthcoming opponents, a paean of praise and awe which left the listener hoping Rhode don't destroy the GAA forever in south Dublin when they come to forage and plunder tomorrow.

He played under-21 hurling for the club last weekend, his last game at the grade and he was a little alarmed he confesses at how coldly his touch had deserted him, revenge for neglect of the stick he knows. If Crokes' odyssey runs on to March it will be a long time before he hurls again, the stick will have cobwebs and mildew on it when next he reaches for it. He is prepared for that.

"It's a long time alright but the club is the heartbeat of the GAA. It's the greatest honour in the game to be doing well and winning things with the club. I would love to be hurling but to win an All-Ireland with my club at 21 is something I would dream about. It would be some feeling and the chance may never come again. " Young, gifted and Crokes; 21 and the world waiting for him to make his choices. Life is good.