Dublin full back Rory O'Carroll will play for John McBrides GAA club in Chicago this summer. In January the three-time All-Ireland winner informed Jim Gavin of his intention to take at least a year away from inter-county football to travel and work in New Zealand.
Currently travelling around Central and South America, before going on to New Zealand, O’Carroll was recently approached by the McBride’s club to line out for four to six weeks, from late July, in the latter half of the Chicago championship.
Kilmacud Crokes team-mate Paul Mannion played for McBride's before returning to the Dublin panel this season after a year abroad. Donegal's All Star wing back Kevin Cassidy and Colm Begley from Laois, along with several other members of Gavin's enlarged Dublin panel, have recently played for the club.
O’Carroll has won two All Stars, in 2013 and 2015, since making his Dublin debut at corner back, aged just 19, in the Leinster semi-final against Westmeath in 2009. Always a man who marches to the beat of his own drum, he surprisingly left Gilroy’s panel soon after to holiday in South East Asia.
He’s been a fixture in the Dublin team ever since.
In 2011 he spent the early part of the year teaching English in Gien, a small town in north central France, before returning to regain the number three jersey and win the first of three All-Ireland medals.
Seemingly the incentives to play football in Chicago were too good for the 26-year-old to ignore.
Despite the loss of O’Carroll and current footballer of the year Jack McCaffrey ( currently furthering his medical studies in Africa) from this season’s side, Gavin, speaking ahead of Sunday’s Leinster football final against Westmeath, believes the performances of Davey Byrne and John Small, with Mick Fitzsimons off the bench, has adequately filled the void.
“Whatever the opposition bring to the table we need to meet that challenge but I think we coped admirably with the tactics Meath employed the last day,” said Gavin of the 0-21 to 0-11 semi-final victory.
“I thought our full back line did very well. Defensively we were quite solid.”
A concern for Dublin, however, is the lack of Division One opposition until the All-Ireland series. Victory on Sunday would mark their 11th provincial title since Westmeath’s one and only capturing of the Delaney Cup in 2004.
“As I said before, I wish the two boys the best of luck with their travels but we are just concentrating on the players that we have. The team has always been about its collective, the sum of its parts and that remains the case.
“No doubt we will have a big challenge with [John] Heslin playing full forward and Kieran Martin playing off him. Paul Sherry is a very good forward, Ger Egan too, Ray Connellan is back from the AFL so they have lots of players that will probe and challenge that defensive structure. Hopefully we will get through that.”
