THE START of another Cadbury Under-21 All-Ireland Football Championship has again underlined the demands being placed on the GAA’s underage players, despite the efforts to address burn out. Over the coming weeks, Dublin’s Rory O’Carroll will attempt to juggle senior football with both under-21 football and hurling, and for the past number of weeks he’s also been playing Sigerson Cup football and Fitzgibbon Cup hurling with UCD.
The one respite, though of course not intended, is that UCD are out of the Sigerson Cup – but O’Carroll is set to play with the hurlers in this afternoon’s Fitzgibbon Cup clash with Limerick IT. He’s been part of the Dublin senior football panel this year, playing in the opening National League games against Kerry and Derry, and intends to be part of both the under-21 football and hurling campaigns – the under-21 football begins on Saturday week, against Louth. Not surprisingly, the 20-year-old wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s mentally challenging more than anything else,” he says, “trying to get up for each training session and each game. But at the end of the day, it’s my choice. I asked to be part of these teams. No one is forcing me to play.
“I haven’t started training with the under-21 hurlers yet, but I hope to make myself available for selection. The chances of me actually starting are fairly slim because my priority will be the Dublin senior footballers. So I’ll probably be a sub at best, but I’d like to give it a shot.”
O’Carroll first announced his arrival as part of the Kilmacud Crokes team that won the All-Ireland title just under a year ago. He then played with the Dublin under-21s that eventually lost out to Cork – who went on to win the All-Ireland.
“It was a missed opportunity for us, I think so. Cork were very good obviously. They went on to win it against Down. We had too many wides. You can blame the forwards as well, but we did concede too many scores. Hopefully we can rectify that this year.
“But we’re not looking past Louth. They’ve just had a big win over Wexford. I think it was a 20-point win, and the game is up there in Louth as well. We’ve no games under our belt yet so we’ll be up against it. It will be a very touch encounter.
“So it’s not easy. January, February and March are fairly hectic. But we’re out of the Sigerson now. We’re playing LIT in the Fitzgibbon, and then we’re at the Fitzgibbon weekend if we win. But we’ll be lucky to get over LIT with the likes of Joe Canning and Séamus Callanan playing.”
O’Carroll may, in fact, end up marking Canning – if such a thing is possible: “I don’t think I’ll be marking him personally but I might brush by him once or twice. He is fairly unstoppable to an extent. He’s lethal. He’s unreal, to be honest. But there’s Callanan, Willie Hyland, who are also there if he’s not playing well.”
Although equally adept at football and hurling, O’Carroll doesn’t intend to pursue a senior hurling career with Dublin, at least not for now: “I decided to go with the footballers. I was giving my time to football. Unless you’re Conal Keaney, I don’t think you’re able to do both. It’s very, very difficult. I know Eoin Cadogan is doing it in Cork. It depends on the player and the county too. It’s very difficult unless you’re superman. Sometimes you can end up falling between two stools and find yourself not starting for either.”
O’Carroll opted out of the senior football panel last summer, to take a break – and admits he was a little concerned about how quick the recall would come.
“Pat Gilroy rang me up and said there’s no hard feelings or anything like that. Ross (his brother) is out with an injury at the moment so it gives a chance to the likes of me and Philly McMahon, Mick Fitzsimons and Paul Conlon. Denis Bastick is injured at the moment and he’ll be back. So there will be good competition there.
“You never know, David Henry played in the forwards in the league last year but ended up corner back, so it won’t be easy to get a place there come the summer.”
