This Dublin team won’t stop until they can’t stay going anymore.
And then they’ll still probably find a way. They’ve won four Sam Maguires in a row now and they’re probably already thinking about a fifth.
How they stay motivated is a triumph in itself, how they come back each year even more obsessed and more hell-bent than the last one is a mystery.
Far from resting on the laurels of an All-Ireland win that would support many a man for a lifetime of sleep, this Dublin bunch are constantly striving for improvements as a team and marginal gains as individuals.
Each man on that panel of 30 wants their place on the starting 15 and there are 15 lads chomping at the bit to get in ahead of them. Each man on that panel of 30 has probably another 30 who aren’t in at that moment hot on their heels to replace them.
Looking at a man like Jonny Cooper would keep anybody on their toes anyway.
So says Brian Fenton.
Fenton, speaking at the AIG launch of the new Dublin jersey admits he’s obsessive himself, but not to the same insatiable level as his Na Fianna teammate.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say to the same obsessive level as Jonny Cooper. Jonny is just incredible. He just has no down-time. He’s always trying to drive himself on…He’s unbelievable,” said Fenton.
This comes after Cooper admitted on Wednesday that he’d been across the water with Saracens rugby to cherry-pick some of the skills from the foreign game, anything that might better himself as a footballer.
“Even little things like the rugby guys, when they’re throwing a pass they finish their fingertips towards the target, just little things that we could potentially use in the handpass in terms of making sure the ball is placed on the man where it should be,” said Cooper.
And it’s ambition like that above which prompted Fenton to arrange for Cooper to come out and inspire the youngsters of his club, Raheny, for an underage training session.
“I brought him to our club in Raheny because I know how good he is to the underage kids, just to try to give off a bit of what he has. It’s a bit of magic dust, really, and he inspires the rest of us in the dressing-room,” he added.
Fenton is striving for more. So is Cooper. So are Dublin.
“For me, I don’t know, obviously you have to be very honest with yourself. How did the year go, 2017? Was it as good? How can I get better in 2018? What can we go after, what can we improve?
“Ask the lads around you what they think you can improve. There’s a lot of that intropsection and self-assessment.
“I think every GAA footballer is trying to do it and you even see it at club level, everyone is trying to improve and it’s fantastic. I think it’s helping the game.
“Yeah, not to Jonny’s level though.”
Tells it all about Jonny Cooper.
Dublin star Brian Fenton was on hand today to help Dublin GAA and sponsors AIG Insurance to officially launch the new Dublin jersey at AIG’s head office in Dublin.
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