GAELIC GAMES:RORY O'CARROLL has confirmed he will return for the AIB Leinster club football final against Offaly champions Rhode on January 23rd. The Kilmacud Crokes and Dublin defender, who was an All Star nominee at full back in 2010, is not expected to play a significant role in the match as he is unable to train properly in Orléans, 180 kilometres south-west of Paris, where he is based on Erasmus for the academic year.
Further attempts at maintaining match fitness with a GAA club in the French capital have been stymied by a technicality.
“There is Paris Gaels but I’m actually teaching so I’m technically not a student so I would have to request a transfer, which I don’t think Kilmacud would be too happy about, so unfortunately I couldn’t do that,” explained O’Carroll yesterday.
Although he doesn’t expect to be used for any more than “10 minutes at best”, O’Carroll intends to be available should Crokes progress to the All-Ireland semi-final where the winner of Ulster champions Crossmaglen Rangers and Neasden Gaels of London will be waiting.
“I chatted to (Crokes manager) Paddy Carr about it. I will travel back and tog out but my fitness is fairly bad now. It’s a rural town so the only place to run is by the river so there is not much I can do, it is not the same as training.”
Although Crokes’ Wexford inter-county footballer Adrian Morrissey returns, having served a one game and four-week suspension, against Rhode, Niall Corkery and Darren Magee will almost certainly miss the provincial final, while there remains an outside chance that Dublin captain Paul Griffin will have recovered from a cruciate knee injury.
“Paul could be back by the end of January. Darren doesn’t know when he will be back. It could be April. Niall Corkery is living over in London and he has to work three out of every four Sundays so he is working like a mad man over there.
“At least I know I will come back in May and can start building myself up again but Niall is there for the foreseeable future. He’s got a permanent job so he will be there for the next while.”
That is the plan as O’Carroll attempts to repeat what was a hugely encouraging championship campaign for the Dublin seniors but particularly the All-Ireland winning under-21 team.
“I’ll be back at the beginning of May. Basically I will just try and get my fitness back. I’ll go back training with the team but the championship is early June so I can’t see myself being back until a good while after that.”
With all that in mind, he played down Dublin’s chances of improving on last season by winning an All-Ireland in 2011.
“If we were going to win anything it was last year. It is only going to get harder, especially because people know the way we are playing, the second season syndrome, as you say, is coming in. There are a lot of new players but the freshness has crept out of that a bit so it will only get tougher.”
So, we can expect a change in tactics? “Yeah, I think people just thrive on something new, something different. So what has to be changed I don’t know, we’ll just have to find our motivation from somewhere.”
