DUBLIN'S TITLE DEFENCE:SEVERAL WORDS have been thrown up to best describe the role of Michael Dara Macauley in this Dublin football team, and the truth is he's still searching for that word himself.
“Unorthodox, unusual, a bit different?” he ventures. “There are a few more as well. Maybe it’s just another way of saying ‘you’re crap, but it works’.
“I don’t know. I just do what I do. If it’s unorthodox and it works then I’m all about it. I’m just going to keep with it. But yeah, I suppose everything helps. With a team doing the same thing week-in, week-out, if you can have a different spark with a different player it can help make things click for a team. Whatever I can do for the team, to be honest.”
Things could get even more unusual for Macauley should Dublin beat Mayo in Sunday’s semi-final, and thus set up an All-Ireland showdown against Donegal.
“Aye, it’s true, and I’m hearing all about it, as I believe they won on Sunday. Because yeah, my dad’s from Donegal, and I hear a lot about it from my cousins and what not. I heard all about it going into the All-Ireland semi-final last year, and if we were to beat Mayo I’m sure I’ll hear all about it going into an All-Ireland final.
“But no, I definitely get my supporting genes from him. He was into the books, he’s a doctor now. But he’s mad into it, he’s huge into football, he knows everything but he never played himself.”
Anyway, whatever about Macauley’s exact role, it’s clearly working, as encapsulated in Dublin’s only goal against Laois, in their All-Ireland quarter-final: Macauley’s roving role helped convert him into Dublin’s most dynamic ball-carrier on the day, but he couldn’t quite take the credit for his freakish goal – as Laois centre back John O’Loughlin touched the ball into his own net.
But he has been one of Dublin’s chief providers for their 12 scorers so far (or 13, when O’Loughlin is included) – and leading the way as usual is Bernard Brogan, with his 3-17, including nine frees.
Macauley agrees Dublin will have to up their scoring rate against Mayo, and again against Donegal, should they get that far. But given the football lesson they were given against Mayo back in the league it’s little wonder that’s their entire focus for now.
“To be honest, it was the biggest hammering I ever got in the Dublin jersey so I suppose these things don’t come lightly. I suppose we definitely had to have a good look at things, things obviously weren’t going right if we were losing by that many points.
“Everything they touched went to gold that day and we were kind of the opposite so it was just definitely one of those days. I’m not taking anything away from the Mayo performance, it was a super performance, they were just hands down better than us on the day.”
In the meantime Dublin are fine-tuning their own game, and not since this time last year has Macauley sensed a greater intensity to their training: “You wouldn’t get to an All-Ireland semi-final if there wasn’t, so lads are conditioned in training. It’s always the way and they’re trying to get their hands on those 1 to 15 jerseys.
“We’re into a semi-final and we have to take things up a further notch if we want to get by this Mayo side who have been putting in some huge performances. Training has been going very well so far and we’ve had a training camp down in Kerry.
“But Mayo have some big lads, they are very physical. If we’re a notch off we won’t match them so we have to be a notch above them now. But our own midfield have been playing very, very well. Eamon (Fennell) had a huge game the last day and Denis (Bastick) had a huge game the game before and both were man of the match contenders. Nobody can argue with our midfield either so it’ll be a huge ask and a lot of games are won and lost with the battle at midfield.”
