The end of Eoghan O'Gara's 2013 championship was hidden in plain sight, unseen by any but the most eagle-eyed, unremarked upon by all. And yet, it was probably as crucial an intervention as he's had or is likely to have in a Dublin jersey. It was a fingertip and no more. It was enough.
Three minutes had passed since Andy Moran’s equalising goal and with the next score vital, Paul Flynn arrowed a 50:50 in between him and Keith Higgins. O’Gara strained to get there first and though he managed to flick a pass in the direction of Diarmuid Connolly, he had to take it on trust that the ball found its destination. By then he had more pressing concerns.
The pain that shot up his right hamstring was both familiar and ferocious. He’d torn it before and knew right away that it was gone again. So while everyone else watched the ball for the seven seconds it took to go from Connolly to Michael Darragh Macauley to Denis Bastick to Bernard Brogan to the net, O’Gara was a crumpled heap. The one person in the stadium who didn’t see Brogan’s goal, the one that sent Dublin into a lead they never let go.
“All for the cause,” he laughs now. “Bernard forgets it sometimes. I like to remind him.”
Famously though, that wasn’t his day done. Even though only 53 minutes had passed, Dublin had been forced into using all their subs by then. A fact of which he was being slowly made aware.
“I thought we had a sub left to come on. I would often have my head in the clouds when I’m playing. Sometimes I wouldn’t know the score or if we had a man sent off. So when the physio came over to me, I told him to get a sub ready straight away. I knew I was done.
“But I think he thought there was still one to come on as well because he went away and had to come back a minute later to tell me I wasn’t going anywhere. I got instructions to stay in there and stay out of the way. Denis Bastick hit a ball down the line to me soon after and I tried running for it but sure the leg went again. I looked up at him and he was cursing me. I’m sure a lot of them were.”
By the end, it all washed out in a second All-Ireland medal. A more satisfying one for him personally than in 2011, purely because he had a bigger impact on the final. Coming on early for Paul Mannion, he scored two points, set up another for Paddy Andrews and drew a dinger of a save out of Rob Hennelly. He actually played fewer minutes over the course of the 2013 summer than he had two years previously but he found these calories far more nourishing.
“In 2011, broke my wrist in the Leinster final and it was patchy after that. I played in all the rest of the games but it was only case of 10 or 15 minutes in each one. After winning that one, I was determined that I really wanted to play a bigger part in the next one if we ever did it again. Last year was much more satisfying. I played much more of the game and I had a bigger impact.”
Rarity
Still, the bitty nature of his contribution isn't bad shorthand for the way his Dublin career has gone. O'Gara is a rarity in the Dublin panel in that he never played a minute of intercounty football at underage. In his minor year, he was one of two players from Templeogue Synge Street to be sent forward for a trial but he was playing soccer with Shelbourne at the time and decided against it. His clubmate, by the by, grew up to be Danny O'Reilly, lead singer of The Coronas.
“I had a decision to make and I went with the soccer. I don’t know if I would have made it through. Danny made it and he played in the final. That was always in the back of my mind. Would I have made it? Would I have played in the final? I went to a couple of matches and watched the final at home on telly. It was a tough one to watch. There was always that what-if in my head.”
By the time his under-21 year came around, he had long left soccer behind but he was carrying an injury that spring and Dublin were knocked out before he was right. Two years later, Pillar Caffrey had him in for a couple of league games but saw too many rough edges that needed smoothing.
“I was supposed to be in the championship squad for the summer but then, ah, I lost a bit of focus. I was training away but I wasn’t anywhere near getting a look-in. I got released then to play with the Dublin juniors. That was the idea, to go and focus on the juniors.
“I can’t remember how it was phrased but I remember not being happy about it and being annoyed. I suppose I just felt that myself and other guys just weren’t getting the chances. You could be top of the charts in a lot of the training sessions and still not getting a look-in. That has completely changed in recent years.”
When Pat Gilroy came in, the seniors took another look at him without yet being particularly impressed. Too lax, not a great timekeeper, very good in flashes at training but too unreliable when it came to the spit and polish that an intercounty player needs to by applying on his own time.
“I got a phonecall from Pat in early 2009 telling me that I had a lot of things to work on and if I went away and did them he’d take another look. Laziness, I suppose was the big one. He didn’t think my work rate was really up where it should have been. I put my hand up and took it on board. Soon after that though, I dislocated my shoulder in a game and I was out for six months. So that was that for 2009.”
It felt like a pattern was developing. Gilroy called him back in for the spring of 2010 but when he got virtually no gametime during the league, he started getting antsy.
“They told me they were keeping me back for the summer. I was working my ass off and I thought I was doing well. I played against Tyrone in the last game but that was it. They were saying, ‘Look, we want to keep you quiet and use you in the summer.’ I was getting annoyed – I didn’t believe them.”
Breakout year
He needn't have worried. That summer was his breakout year and even now it stands as the championship in which he's played the most minutes and scored the most points. In 22 championship appearances for Dublin, O'Gara has only managed to start and finish a game four times - three of them were in 2010.
With the stage lights come the critics, however. Even though he was 25 by the time he made his championship bow, his personality wasn’t exactly custom-fit for the big time. O’Gara is one of those people whose boisterous expressions of physicality on the pitch make up for an almost timid shyness off it. In his debut season he was all elbows and angles, with a skinhead on top. The notices weren’t always kind.
“I would have taken it to heart a bit. I would have talked to some people about it and they told me that there was one sure way around it and that was to stop reading it. That’s what I’ve done. Maybe there are people who can read stuff and it doesn’t affect them but me back then, it definitely got in a bit on me. It affected my confidence.
“It would take a bit of work for me to get my self-confidence right. I do work hard on that because I’m not the most naturally confident person. I wouldn’t be the cockiest man in the room. But self-confidence is very important. Especially in our set-up where there are so many players who are at such a high standard.
“If you want to be getting picked, you have force yourself to be confident. You won’t get very far being under-confident. You have to train yourself to believe in yourself.
"You look around you and see all the players that are there, especially the younger guys coming through. They have loads of confidence. I wish I could buy it off them sometimes."
False starts
For now though, after a stellar league, it is they who are chasing him. Finally, after a career of false starts, O'Gara looks to have a place in Dublin's full-forward line nailed down. Or as close to nailed down as you can get in Jim Gavin's galaxy.
“After 2011, I was in a bit of a daze. I had an All-Ireland medal, my daughter was born two days before the final and I started college the week after. I had to repeat that year in the end because there was so much going on. I’m more focused now, more experienced. I have more learning done from f**k-ups.
“But my thought process is quite simple. I’m really happy in that I’ve played in every league game. I have a lot of game time on the clock and a reasonable bit of form going into the summer. Closer to the team? I don’t know. You can say that I am but it doesn’t take much for that to swing in the other direction.”
Nobody knows it better than he does.
