Casey climbing high on steep learning curve

When you're a few weeks short of your 21st birthday and still learning the ropes of senior football, playing in a sold-out Croke Park game might be overwhelming. Daunting even. Yet Paul Casey talks about it like he's been doing it for years rather than weeks, writes Ian O'Riordan

Casey's rise through the ranks of Dublin football has been remarkably swift, but not unique. Once manager Tommy Lyons went about putting his signature on the Dublin team, he had a place for Casey at right-wing back. Lyons had a place too for Alan Brogan in attack and Barry Cahill in defence.

There was also goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton, who like Casey, Cahill, and Brogan, was part of the successful Leinster under-21 team this year. Darren Magee was there too and is also a strong feature of the panel now. That company helped ease Casey into the big time.

"It was definitely a good time to come in," he say, "with the new manager and a lot of new players as well. And Tommy has been brilliant with the young players. He doesn't see age or experience as any kind of barrier.

"But it was a big difference to coming into a team where you already know players. It's not like coming into a whole new set-up. And the older players have been a huge help as well, like Darren Homan and Coman Coggins."

Yet there were doubters out there, those who said so much youth was a dangerous thing against teams like Meath and Kildare. Though Casey's consistency at wing back has helped proved them wrong, the success in Leinster is still very much part of his learning curve. "It has all happened very quickly. But there's a long way to go, and a lot of improvement to do yet. Against Kildare we never put the heads down, even when they went ahead. A lot of our training is learning to stick with the game plan.

"And there was no fear against Meath either. The lads that suffered three or four Leinster defeats went in there thinking only about winning.

"There has been huge hype growing since the Leinster final. We were back training on the Tuesday and there was a great buzz, but then there were club matches the next weekend, and after that all the focus was on the next day. The Leinster is definitely in the past now. We're only thinking about Donegal now."

With a father from Kerry, and a mother from Kilkenny, Casey's sporting future wasn't always directed at football. An early start at Lucan Sarsfields, where he first played at the age of nine, soon had him on the football trail.

"There was a bit of hurling interest there to. But my dad was a Kerry minor, and with my brother, Michael, on the panel for the last four years it was football that took over."

It was on the TV as an 11-year-old when he watched Dublin last play Donegal in the championships summer of 1992. "What I do remember from that day as well was watching The Sunday Game that night, and seeing how the Dublin players were devastated. I realised then that nobody likes to lose.

"But we've watched them against Meath, and they have some very good forwards. Nothing will come easy, and it's definitely our biggest test yet. Maybe the expectations have grown a little higher now, but we're not going out there to take whatever comes. We still want to go out to win."

Casey represents the new breed of Dublin footballers, who know much more about winning than losing. He rates the under-21 victory in April as the perfect foundation for the summer.

"I think that was long overdue. The confidence factor has been the important thing, cause you can get used to winning as well. I mean we had five of the under-21's finishing the last two Dublin matches. It doesn't feel like there are any individuals on this team. It's like we're all totally in it together."