Don’t knock the O’Byrne Cup. Every once in a while, it throws up a Diarmuid Connolly.
10 January 2007. A Wednesday night in Ringsend. A career started that would help change the face of Dublin football.
Dublin 3-14
Dublin City University 0-12The report in the HoganStand lead with Diarmuid Connolly back in 2007.
Rising stars Dermot Connolly and David O’Callaghan bagged 1-5 and 1-4 respectively as Paul Caffrey’s charges romped to a convincing win in their opening foray of the season.
On his debut for the county, a 19-year-old St. Vincent’s man hit 1-5 on his own.
Connolly struck on six different occasions, scoring just once from a dead ball as he put a Conor Mortimer-inspired college outfit to the sword.
Lined out at number 10, he was marking the start of what would be 10 unbelievable years in the sky blue jersey. So far.
Since then, his medal haul has been just ridiculous.
With Dublin:
- All-Ireland SFC – 4
- Leinster SFC – 9
- National Football League – 4
- O’Byrne Cup – 3
- Leinster U21 hurling championship – 1
With St. Vincent’s:
- All-Ireland SFC – 2
- Leinster SFC – 4
- Dublin SFC – 4
Total: 31
Dublin went on to win the Leinster championship that year – they’d win nine of the following 10 in fact – but Connolly would have to wait until 2011 to get his hands on Sam.
But after his terrifying display, ripping apart the DCU defence 10 years ago in Clann na nGael, it was clear that a star was a born.
It doesn’t stop people trying to rewrite history though. In what is supposed to be a recount of Connolly’s career as a Dubliner, wordlibrary.org saw it very differently.
“Playing in his first inter-county senior football match in 2007, Connolly again disappointed against an outnumbered DCU side in the first round of the O’Byrne Cup with a total of 0-01 (0-1f),” the page reads.
There’s a lot more where that came from.
There’s also some more lesser-learned history from the 2011 All-Ireland championship.
And the reason for Connolly’s All-Star omission is clear – “disgraceful performances”.
Diarmuid Connolly has more people begrudging him than probably any footballer in Ireland. For every good thing he does, someone takes exception to something else. For every point he scores, someone focuses on his missed opportunities or his red cards. No-one quite splits the nation like Diarmuid Connolly can but, after watching him for 10 years, no Dublin supporter would have him any other way.
For 10 years in has been thrills and spills, the best selection of passing, mouthwatering scores and sheer, unrelenting power. For 10 years it has been pure magic at times and it has been non-stop success.
That’s what the Diarmuid Connolly era has brought. Like him or not.
Diarmuid Connolly is a genius, stop denying it | @ConanDoherty https://t.co/m51Og8zgFm #GAA
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 2, 2016
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