An All-Ireland final is the perfect setting for Garrycastle's star to show his true class, writes MALACHY CLERKIN

The week before the All- Ireland semi-final against St Brigid’s, the two Dessie Dolans – junior and senior – went to see Prof Conor Burke, an expert in respiratory medicine.

They didn’t tell too many people about it but things were bad at the time and it was looking close to certain that Dessie jnr would have to sit out the biggest game in Garrycastle’s history. An infection in his tonsils had found its way into his chest and as far as Prof Burke saw it, there was no likelihood of an improvement inside three weeks.

So training was out. And, in any other circumstances, a game would have been out as well. But missing it wasn’t an option Dessie jnr seriously considered. Not their first All-Ireland semi-final. Not against his cousins from across the river. All it would mean would be that he couldn’t go chasing hither and yon around the pitch and that he’d have to make it count every time he got on the ball.

So instead of training, he and his father did what they’ve done as far back as they can remember. They took a bag of balls to the rugby pitch beside their house and went through their shooting drill. Six balls in a set – left, middle and right at both ends of the pitch. Dessie snr feeding, Dessie jnr collecting, turning and shooting. Thirty-six shots and then they were done.

Come the Saturday, he not only started and finished the game but he kicked seven points along the way, five of them from frees. He operated on the fringes of the afternoon but still ended it the top scorer. For the father who has watched just about every kick of his career, it was lovely to realise the boy could still surprise him.

“He couldn’t breathe,” says Dessie snr now, shaking his head. “How he played the game is beyond me. I have no idea how he did it. He was very ill and he was still white in the face a fortnight after it. He wasn’t well at all.”

Today, as Garrycastle try to find safe passage through the Crossmaglen jungle, Dessie snr will look on from the stand. Although he and Irene are at every training session and every game, he’s a spectator now and no more. “If they ever want a hand, I give them a hand,” he says.

Which is how it all started in the first place. When Dessie jnr and Gary were playing under-12, their coach Pat Devlin dragooned Dessie snr into taking a session. That one session turned into nine years, Garrycastle’s underage teams bouncing from title to title like frogs over lilypads along the way.

“I always got on very well with dad when he came in to coach us,” smiles Dessie jnr. “Training was always very good and very enjoyable. Pat Devlin used to bring cans of Coke and packets of biscuits from his job. It was like an incentive to come to training. As soon as training was over at half-eleven on a Saturday morning, it was race to the boot of Pat’s car and we’d all be killing each other to get there first.”

“I would have carried that forward to intercounty,” says Dessie snr, “only I’d have been afraid some of the boys would be looking for cans of something a bit heavier than Coke!”

Once they reached senior, the older Dolan left them at it. “I felt myself that they’d be better off if I was away from them. Players need a fresh voice. If I’m talking to you for 10 years, telling you what to do, you’ll get pissed off. I mean, you could get married to the most beautiful woman in the world but you’ll eventually get pissed off listening to her as well. That’s the reality of it.”

He went away and coached teams here and there of every stripe at every level. Some of the best times he had were at Shannonbridge in Offaly, the club of a shooting buddy of his who’d been bugging him to train them. When he went there, he found them training on a 40-yard square piece of waste ground belonging to the ESB. When they did eventually get themselves a pitch, it was L-shaped.

“No joke! It was two oul’ fields at right angles to each other with the ditch taken out. You had to turn the corner to score a goal! Ah, they were priceless people altogether. I was there for three years and we went from junior to senior football in that time.”

In Garrycastle, his boys were thriving. The club was 30 years old the year of its first county title in 2001 and yet they followed it up with five more over the next decade. One year borrowed the next and the main body of the side pretty much stayed the same. Of that original 2001 team, 10 remained in situ for the sixth title in 2011. Sit down with a teamsheet and you can still trace a fair chunk of it back to the boot of Pat Devlin’s car all those years ago.

“I’m playing with some of these lads since we were six years of age in the street leagues,” says Dessie jnr. “All the way up along we would have thought we were fairly good. We’d see teams that were doing well and think that we would fancy our chances against them. But once you get into playing in Leinster, you’re up against really top-class opposition.

“Leinster’s difficult, you know? We came up against Kilmacud Crokes a few times and Portlaoise too. These are strong outfits. But we always knew we were a decent team and that we were close up to the mark.”

Win, lose or draw, Dessie snr was always there. And when there was no football they knew where to find him. He was shooting or fishing, one or the other depending on the calendar.

“The boys and I fish together and shoot together the whole time,” he says. “We’re best friends really. They’re like brothers to me rather than sons.

“We’ve a very good relationship. I’ll be out on Lough Ree and they’ll come and join me in the boat when they’re finished work or if they don’t have training.”

There might be even more time for it after today. Dessie jnr hasn’t committed himself to another year with Westmeath yet and didn’t seem especially keen on the idea when we talked. Nothing exists beyond today and Crossmaglen. Both men know there’s very few holding a candle for them this afternoon and neither has any great problem with it. If nothing else, they’re used to it.

“You have the incentive of people writing you off,” says Dessie jnr. “But at the same time, we have deserved to be underdogs a lot of the time. The teams we’re going in against are serious sides. Any team that comes from Dublin has to be strong. St Brigid’s of Roscommon were in the All- Ireland final last year.

“Crossmaglen are Crossmaglen. We’re total underdogs and that’s fair enough. You can’t argue with it. We can’t be bulling and going, ‘It’s our first ever final but we should be favourites.’ It doesn’t work like that.”

Usually, if there’s bulling to be done, the father will oblige. What say you, Mr D? “Look, we’re probably 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 going up against them,” he says. “And they’re supposed to have the best man-marker in the country going up against Dessie. Fair enough. But I have yet to see a team mark him out of a game, no matter who plays on him.”

So speaks a man who’s been watching him all his life. He’s been watching them all.