Con O’Callaghan opens up on the Dublin A v B training games

Darragh Culhane

You don’t need to tell anyone how good Dublin’s bench is.

In the build-up to every All-Ireland final there’s always a certain narrative that is driven home. Last year, it was how Keegan and Connolly would do and this year was the strength and depth of Dublin.

All you had to do is check the calibre of some of the players on the Dublin bench last Sunday.

Diarmuid Connolly – Two-time All-Star
Bernard Brogan – Four-time All-Star; One-time Player of the Year
Michael Darragh MacAuley – Two-time All-Star; One-time Player of the Year
Paul Flynn – Four-time All-Star

And that’s not including Cormac Costello or Niall Scully who came on against Mayo, future All-Stars in their own right.

It was revealed earlier in the week that the Dublin ‘B’ team that would have included all those players as well as the likes of Eric Lowndes and Denis Bastick were the only team to beat the Dublin ‘A’ team this summer.

Con O’Callaghan, of course, would have been on the ‘A’ team.

The Cuala man has had a not-so-shabby year, winning an All-Ireland Club championship and then an All-Ireland under-21 title and also a Sam Maguire at the end of it too. He did alright, like.

The 21-year-old was in Abbotstown on Thursday for the launch of Sky Sports GAA Grassroots and he gave a great insight as to how intense the challenge matches between Dublin’s the two sides would be during those infamous in-house games.

“I’d say we could have lost a couple but every ‘A’ v ‘B’ match is just seriously intense,” the All-Ireland final goalscorer said.

“There’s a couple of lads who don’t even make the B team on that and when they come in there’s a huge intensity in every match.

“The A’s are looking to beat the B’s and the B’s are looking to beat the A’s in every match.

“We get a proper referee, full intensity, full everything – with a match-day warm-up and go at it and there’s always a bit of bite in those matches and a bit of fight from everyone.”

O’Callaghan found out on Thursday that he was nominated for both Young Player of the Year and an All-Star after making such an impression in Dublin’s All-Ireland winning campaign and he was happy to acknowledge his success:

“It’s great,” he said.

“Look, individual awards – as people always say – are great but if we didn’t come over the line and we didn’t win by one point against Mayo it wouldn’t really mean much.”

Sky Sports announced it is partnering with the GAA on three major grassroots initiatives which will see the broadcaster invest a total of 3 million euro over five years.