Macauley determined to drive on with Ballyboden

An eventful, unpredictable year for Michael Darragh Macauley should finish next weekend when his club Ballyboden St Enda's contest the last provincial final of the year against Portlaoise.

There are two main aspects to Macauley’s 2015. Firstly his intercounty season was frustrating for a recent footballer of the year: slow to get going because of injury and hard to get into as a starting place with Dublin proved elusive.

Secondly, his club campaign blossomed unexpectedly, as Ballyboden overwhelmed hot favourites and last year’s All-Ireland champions St Vincent’s in the county final.

Taking the first element, he acknowledges that his satisfaction at winning a third All-Ireland medal was compromised by not being able to play as big a role in the success as he might have expected.

“It probably was, to be honest. I featured strongly in Dublin’s last two All-Irelands in 2011 and 2013. As every player does, I wanted to play every minute of every game.

“The championship I foresaw for myself wasn’t how it played out. And to that extent, I have absolutely no regrets.

“I put in a monstrous amount of effort to get myself right and I was; I had my body right. I was really looking forward to the back end of the championship but things didn’t go my way. In saying that, an All-Ireland is an All-Ireland. I know how hard they are to come by. I still enjoyed this one as much as the other two but it was different.

“I definitely would hope that my intercounty career hasn’t peaked, or nowhere near it. It’s frustrating. I’m not in line to be a supersub just yet.”

In a way his career has come full circle. Six years ago when Ballyboden previously won the county title, he played a sufficiently prominent role to earn the call-up into Pat Gilroy’s panel for the 2010 season and his Dublin career took off.

Now after the first experience of turbulence on that journey, his club football has refocused attention on him and the dynamism and drive he brings to centrefield play.

Limelight

Macauley acknowledges that Ballyboden have been regarded as more of a hurling club – even the 2009 football championship had to share limelight with the hurlers, as the club did the double that season – and cites the comments of county chair Seán Shanley on the evening of last month’s county victory.

“We’ve been called a hurling club for years. Even the chairman came out to us and gave us a speech after we won the Dublin final and the first thing he said was, ‘I thought this was a hurling club’. He said he had his speech planned for St Vincent’s that night! There hasn’t been rivalry. The hurlers have been fantastic. And the good thing is that the dual players play with both. So it’s not like with the Dublin team, where they play with one or the other.”

There has been a changing of the guard in Ballyboden since the last title win, which Macauley accepts led to an poor challenge by a Dublin club for the Leinster title – in an era when Vincent's and Kilmacud have won both won All-Irelands and Ballymun fell at the last hurdle.

“I’d been hearing for years about these young fellas winning at underage for Ballyboden, winning Féiles and coming up through minors, potential superstars in the making, and they’re finally hitting 19-21 now and breaking into our team and really pushing for places and establishing themselves as senior players who are as good or better than anyone on the team.

"Then you have – I won't put myself in the oul' fellas group yet, I reckon I've another year to go – but yes, there's the likes of [Conal] Keaney, [Stephen] Hiney, Declan O'Mahony and Andrew Kerins, who've been around for a long time and seen it all before. It's impossible to win a championship with too much experience or too much youth – we have a nice little balance at the moment."

Competing merits

He reveals that he thinks Donegal goalkeeper

Paul Durcan

, who has been playing with the club but who has emigrated, will be available for Sunday. Asked from his perspective as a centrefielder under kick-outs about the competing merits of Durcan and Dublin captain Stephen Cluxton, he says: “They’re two lads who are at the top of their game. I probably under-appreciated Paul until I played with him. It’s only when he’s nailing kick-outs 60 yards into your hands that you really appreciate him. Himself and Stephen would give each other some run for their money.”

Assessing the final, Macauley reaches for a topical comparison: “Portlaoise are very experienced when it comes to Leinster. They are the Kiltschko, we’re like the Fury coming into this. But if you look at last weekend, sometimes Fury can beat the Klitschkos.”