“Pat Gilroy was very quick to explain and very quick to dispel any levels of entitlement that were anywhere. This was something bigger than us, this was the Dublin team”
The Kingdom stand between Dublin and footballing immortality.
It may be beyond some readers’ memories, but it wasn’t always like this. Dublin used to not only be human, but downright beatable. In the early 2000s, they were pretty useless. In the mid 2000s, they were dominating Leinster but being dumped out of the All-Ireland series. By the late 2000s, however, something was beginning to change.
SportsJOE spoke to Ray Boyne, Performance Analyst with Dublin football from 2003-2017, about entitlement, sleeping under the Arnotts canopy and the under-appreciated Pillar Caffrey.
“I remember in the run-up to Christmas just after he’d taken on the job, he wanted the players to see Dublin in a different light. So, he joined forces with the Father McVerry Trust and the Simon Community and he got the players to attend various events…I think that gave people an appreciation of who they were playing for, what it was about. It was bigger, it was something that was unique that was being bestowed on the players as individuals to come together and to deliver for Dublin.”
The culture shift that came about in Dublin GAA and an increasing professionalism in the set-up saw Dublin go from also-rans to champions by 2011. A move out to a dedicated base in DCU, supported by Professor Niall Moyna, as well as a deep-rooted alteration in how Dublin footballers perceived themselves and those who supported them, are credited with helping to build the unprecedented success of this team.
You can hear from Boyne, as well as former players Alan Brogan and Paul Flynn, in the video below.
https://www.facebook.com/SportsJOEdotie/videos/2515572608730357/
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