An interesting thing happened seven minutes from the end of Dublin’s win over Monaghan on Saturday night. Ciarán Kilkenny came sprinting off the pitch, his number having been called by Jerry Grogan on the PA system. He wasn’t limping or grimacing or anything like that. Niall O’Callaghan came sprinting on to take his place.
The interesting thing about it was that Dublin were losing when Kilkenny came off. His last act on the pitch was to dish off a handpass for Con O’Callaghan (Niall’s brother) to kick his second two-pointer of the night, cutting Monaghan’s lead to a single point. We went searching for the last time a Dublin manager took Kilkenny off with a game in the balance. We couldn’t find one.
Over the years, Kilkenny has missed the odd game or occasionally not started. But it’s incredibly rare for him not to finish a game once he has togged out. By our count, he was last substituted in March 2024. Dublin were hammering Tyrone in the last round of the league and in a game that would ultimately end in an 18-point win, Dessie Farrell brought off Kilkenny, Brian Fenton and Con O’Callaghan before the hour mark.
Before that, there was a league win over Donegal in 2022 when he departed the scene in the 71st minute when Dublin were out the gap. There was a league game against Kerry in 2016 when he came off in the 57th minute but Dublin had just banged in their second goal and were comfortably ahead. But in general, they almost never take him off. And certainly not when there’s doubt left in the result.
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You might even have to go back as far as 2013, in his first game back after returning from Australia, when Kilkenny exited in the 61st minute against Mayo. Dublin ended up winning by four but soon after he was replaced by Paddy Quinn, Lee Keegan cut the gap to three points and you couldn’t rule out a barnstorming finish. It could genuinely be that long ago since Kilkenny was last replaced in a close game. Any reader who can tell us different, by all means knock yourself out.
As it happened, no sooner had Kilkenny taken his seat in the stand on Saturday night than Dublin turned the game in their direction once and for all. Joe Quigley’s goal came from a turnover in midfield as Monaghan’s Stevie O’Hanlon gave a loose handpass, leaving Dublin with a huge overload down the centre of the Monaghan defence. The Dubs outscored their visitors by 1-2 to 0-1 in the seven minutes Kilkenny was off the pitch.
It wasn’t that Kilkenny had played badly or anything. He scored the game’s first point after a poor Rory Beggan clearance and went on to add another to press home the Dublin advantage after one of the myriad missed Monaghan goal chances. He was wide with one early two-point effort but on a night when Dublin made just two successful kicks from 10 attempts at two-pointers, Kilkenny was far from the worst offender.
For all the talk after Dublin’s game against Mayo about Ger Brennan singling out his more experienced players, nobody seriously imagined he had Kilkenny in mind. In the pantheon of Dublin heroes, very few have done more to earn the right to call his own way out. Whatever about his displays during their imperial phase, Kilkenny was Dublin’s only All Star in 2021 and 2022, when the air seemed to be going out of the Dublin balloon entirely.
People tend to forget that he was the first of the famed 1993 crew to play senior – Pat Gilroy gave him his debut in 2012. This is his 15th season of intercounty football. He didn’t play in the league opener against Donegal and came on as a first-half sub against Mayo. It’s only right and sensible that Dublin mind his minutes.
“Creative tension is good, isn’t it?” said Brennan afterwards on Saturday. “It keeps everyone on their toes.”
He was responding to a question asking why he picked out the experienced players specifically in his by now wildly over-analysed postmatch comments in Castlebar. We didn’t ask him about Kilkenny in particular but the Dublin manager was interesting in his general take on the players who have carried Dublin through the past decade and a half.
“It was just an acknowledgment of their reputations and the character of those guys and what they’ve won. And just for them to have an honest think – is the hunger still there? What we’ve seen in the last two weeks has been super. We’re thrilled with those lads. The hunger’s still there and we’ve seen some of the experienced guys out there tonight putting in a huge shift too and mixing it with a lot of young ones as well.”
Kilkenny turns 33 in July and the last phase of his Dublin career will make for a fascinating watch. One thing is for sure – Dublin definitely aren’t good enough yet to make a habit of seeing out tight games with him off the pitch. That day feels a while away yet.
