The breath of fresh air that is Michael Darragh MacCauley.
They say ignorance is bliss, and when you’re going up against GAA legends such as Sean Cavanagh or Aidan O’Mahony, who have multiple All-Irelands in their back pockets, then maybe not knowing is better.
Last night’s TG4 Laochra Gael episode focused on the marauding midfielder, Darragh Michael MacCauley, or MDMA, as he is affectionately known.
We all know about his eight All-Ireland wins, his Player of The Year award, and that unbelievable sequence of plays in the 2011 final, where he dived like a man possessed to flick the ball away from Kieran Donaghy and into the hands of Kevin McManamon, who then went on to score that famous goal.
What we didn’t know, was what the Ballyboden man didn’t know, which was basically, not a lot about Gaelic football.
Obviously his reading and understanding of the game was at the most elite of levels, but the basketball-obsessed athlete was not necessarily a super-knowledgeable fan of Gaelic games or their stars at the time.
He wouldn’t have been known to sit and learn about the history, watch old games, follow the big names from other counties and join in on pub debates about who was the best to ever do it.
MDMA was too focused on creating his own history, completely uninterested and therefore, unfazed at the prospect of marking the big names in the game.
Reputation meant nought for the dynamic Dub, and his attitude was far more along the lines of: ‘they need to be worried about me.’
In last night’s documentary, he admitted that on his county debut against Kerry, he was told that he would be marking Aidan O’Mahony.
With five All-Irelands to his name, a rich history of snuffing out some of the best forwards in the game such as Ciaran McDonald, how he once played a county club final with a broken leg and scored two points – everyone in the GAA knows who he O’Mahony is.
Not MacAuley though – he had never heard of him before, and didn’t want to hear about him.
“I distinctly remember people telling me that I was marking Aidan O’Mahony on the day, I didn’t know who Aidan O’Mahony was, so I took to Google.”
His former teammate, Darragh Nelson, was able to back up the authenticity of such a claim.
“That’s Mick in a nutshell, he doesn’t take note of who he is up against. He was playing Tyrone one year and was told that he was going up against Sean Cavanagh, and he said: ‘Who?'”
Sometimes we can get too dragged down by what the opposition can do, instead of focusing on what we ourselves can bring to the table, and Michael Darragh MacCauley is the perfect example of why you shouldn’t fear anyone.
