Jack McCaffrey: ‘When we cross the white line we’ll kill you’

Jack McCaffrey takes a seat under a large glass window in the lobby of the Gibson Hotel and lets it all sink in, sip after delicious sip. Every player who wins an All-Ireland talks about needing this moment, and for McCaffrey it’s only beginning the morning after the day before.

Only where to actually begin?

Being taken off in his first All-Ireland win over Mayo in 2013? Losing to Donegal a year later? Being sick as a dog before the 2015 final and still ending up footballer of the year? Watching Dublin’s 2016 win from the stand after his selfless year of medical studies in Africa? Or Sunday’s triumph over Tyrone, one year after a cruciate ligament tear ended his 2017 final within four minutes?

“I know,” he says with that cartoon assassin’s smile, “the first time I’ve been on the pitch when the final whistle blew in an All-Ireland. Incredible, so satisfying, such a relief, and I’d have to say that’s one of the best performances that I’ve ever put in.

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“Going out on Sunday, I just wanted to work as hard as I possibly could. The lads got me out of jail last year, pulled me over the line when I couldn’t go out and do it myself.

“We spoke as a group before the game and I was going to work so hard, do everything I could, because this time last year I felt I was on the cusp of a really good performance, on the money, and it was taken away from me. It was a real source of inspiration for me. Who am I to not make a 20-metre run? This time last year I wasn’t able to.

“So from my point of view, personally, it’s incredibly satisfying to transition from watching in the stands throughout the league and early parts of the championship to being down on the field. And I think everybody really stepped up and maybe did what they had to do.

Like Paul Mannion, who would love to be kicking 2-3, turning over Tyrone players in our full back line, on two occasions. I think the collective bond and the collective work ethic we’ve had has really come to the fore this year and, if anything, we’ve become even tighter.”

No team or player gets very far without that bond and work ethic, and McCaffrey is the embodiment of it – this being the year of his fourth All-Ireland, while toiling his way back from injury, also qualifying in medicine, and all before turning 25 next month. To attribute all that to population or resources – or something as indecent as financial doping’ – is to ignore the gift of it all.

“One of our absolutely key strengths is that we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” he says, suddenly with meaning. “There are so many arguments out there about Dublin football, the stuff we’ve done, but I would challenge anyone to take a look at our group and have a cut off us. When we cross the white line we’ll kill you, no two ways about it. We’ll do whatever it takes to win.

Pay cheque

“But outside a football context, it’s something I take great pride in. I know someone who came up to me and said ‘I met Philly McMahon at a charity thing’, and Philly would never say it at training, and the same can be said from number one through the 30. It’s something we really try not to lose sight of, something really special for us, and something we’ve stayed in touch with.”

This is not McCaffrey pretending every county is as well armed as Dublin; it’s just mildly offensive when some people attribute all their success to money.

“Sometimes it’s just lads trying to get a bit of a rise. I think when everyone sits down and has a think about it, there are not many lads who look at us playing football and say ‘jeez, the Dubs they’ve got so much money, it’s not fair’.

“Things may have been a bit disproportionate in the past but on the flip side of things, with my father coaching the 1993 lads, he wasn’t bringing home a pay cheque. I think that this group of players that we have at the moment, I don’t think we’ve got anything that anyone else doesn’t get. I do think the GAA has a myriad of issues they can deal with, off-season stuff, and being fair to everyone is first and foremost on our list.

“I think people at this point are just starting to enjoy what we do, and appreciate that. I’m incredibly lucky to put on a Dublin jersey alongside some of the best Dublin footballers of all time, some of the best footballers ever to play for Dublin. If I had come along and they hadn’t, I’d be soldiering away, struggling. Nobody is labouring under the illusion that this is something to continue indefinitely.”

If his father, 1988 All Star defender Noel McCaffrey, helps keep him grounded (“if anyone wasn’t underestimating Tyrone it was the McCaffrey household”) then so too does McCaffrey’s entrance into medicine. He spent the summer working with the paediatric unit in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, and will soon rotate onto the cardiology team, and he’s clearly found his vocation.

“I absolutely love it. A huge percentage of the team are foreign nationals, who have no concept of Gaelic football but have kind of come to realise there is something going on that they should maybe be a bit excited about.

“At the moment I’m working half-eight to five, relatively set hours. It will definitely be a bit more up in the air. But there’s a very similar culture to what you find in a dressing room, in my experience, everyone covers each other. So I think as long as I want to play football it will be catered for and people will have your back which is something I really appreciate.

Humbling space 

“And it’s a really humbling space to be in, you do get to experience some families that are in incredibly tough times. We went to visit a young man on Monday, who is passing away, an 18-year-old fella. And to know he was going to be sitting there with a Dublin jersey on, cheering you on, rather than diminishing what football is, because of how trivial it is, it just makes you appreciate it so much, the release it gives people, the joy that people get from watching us play football. It’s kind of mind-blowing when you sit down and think about it.”

The Jack McCaffrey of 2018 has changed in other ways too – definitely a defender first: “Yeah, I was a horrific tackler, relying on my pace to kind of recover when I lost men or whatever. And you can hear lads talking about it on the pitch. Like, they get the ball, they say ‘go on, got at him, go at him’.

“It’s great to turn a perceived weakness into a strength, and I’ve seen it in games over the last number of years that teams will get the ball and can see that I’m eyeing them up and, ‘oh it’s McCaffrey, I’ll just go at him, he can’t tackle’ and to be able to invite that on, and then turn them over, is great.”

None of these victories would be as sweet without the lingering taste of defeat, starting with the 2011 All-Ireland minor final, to Tipperary, alongside the likes of Paul Mannion, John Small and Ciarán Kilkenny.

“It’s funny, we’re sitting here after winning an All-Ireland, and when you look back on your achievements to date, it’s kind of the losses that stick out a little bit. That loss to Tipperary in 2011. Losing to Longford in the U-21s in 2013. Losing to Donegal in 2014, then a Freshers All-Ireland final we lost to DCU with UCD. Maybe it’s something about the nature of athletes, always something you have in the back of your mind.”

Now let that thought sink in.