Still a mad Dub despite trading places

GAELIC GAMES:Niall Corkery gave up his Dublin football ambitions to pursue a life as a trader in the City of London. He talks candidly with GAVIN CUMMISKEY

LAST NOVEMBER Niall Corkery began work as a trader with a large American company based in the City of London. It was some leap especially considering how adamant he is that Dublin will win an All-Ireland title in the near future. And, as a regular starter throughout the 2010 championship, he was in on the ground floor. But at 26 years old, Corkery understandably felt the pressing need to rigorously pursue his chosen career path.

“I genuinely do believe this team will win the All-Ireland but the reason I went over to London is this is what I wanted to do for a career.”

The opportunity doesn’t exist at home? “Not on the same scale.”

Life interrupted his football journey. “I am incredibly proud to have been part of the Dublin panel. Not even proud; grateful for the chance to be a part of something like this.”

That life is currently residing in the Angel district of Islington. And he is not alone. There are friends from Kilmacud Crokes like Ciarán Kelleher. Plenty more from school and college are on the way. At least the All-Ireland club medal is banked from 2009 because Gaelic football is on the back burner for now. His last game for Crokes lasted 19 minutes due to a knee injury sustained from an off-the-ball challenge during the Leinster quarter-final against Portlaoise.

A week or so later he had emigrated.

He linked up with the Parnells club out near Wembley, even acting as middle man when Pat Gilroy sought to organise a challenge match when Vodafone sent the Dubs over for some pre-championship training at London Irish RFC.

“The job certainly comes first. Even if you do make it for training you are wrecked so I’m not overly useful. And by that I mean absolutely useless.”

This is one of many examples of the man’s humility. Gilroy made a lasting impression on him and they have retained links (so too David Hickey: “Just a brilliant person, end of. Passionate about Dublin football but so colourful whatever field he is talking about”).

Corkery informed the Dublin manager of the job opportunity when it came up last year. As a successful businessman, currently managing director of Dalkia Ireland, Gilroy could relate to the predicament.

Gilroy saw something in Corkery that others had patently missed. There was a wealth of natural footballers on the Crokes team so it took a while, even after shelving a promising club rugby career with Blackrock, before he cemented a place in the midfield/half-forward line.

So, how did a flanker on the Blackrock schools’ teams that was kicked to death by Jonny Sexton’s St Mary’s in the 2003 Leinster Schools semi-final become a Dublin Gaelic footballer?

He only started playing for Crokes at 16. Without bothering to inform his rugby coaches, he just landed at Gaelic training with his blue and white socks all muddied up. Skip on a few years and a heavy defeat for the ’Rock under-20s down in France against the Biarritz Academy led to inquiries about Corkery coming back for a trial.

“I brushed it aside. I wanted to finish my degree (in engineering – his post grad was quantitative finance) and I wouldn’t really have backed myself in that situation to go back to Biarritz and blow the doors off.”

Rugby coaches in Blackrock disagree. They were sorry to see him go.

The Dublin call-up didn’t come until February 2010. Crokes team-mates told him his name had been up on the board at weights sessions before selector Paddy O’Donoghue asked him up to training in UCD. He was already part of the college Sigerson side but he had a distinct opinion of himself as an average footballer and believed his role would be little more than cannon fodder in training. Initially, he politely declined.

If he knew then what he knows now he would happily spend years as a grinder in Dublin practice games. “There are no cliques, no north-south divide or anything like that. Everyone just got on.”

And that from a Crokes man.

“Yeah, we were conscious of that. We could easily have stuck to ourselves. We had enough of our own but we always made an effort. Everyone did.”

Gilroy eventually settled for him as Dublin’s primary running machine from the league game up in Omagh right through to the bitter end that was August in Croke Park. They would give him a five-minute warning 15 minutes into most second halves. “You’d be fairly empty already so you would know to dig a little deeper.”

You pull him back to last summer. The Tyrone experience. The inches that separated Cork and Dublin in an All-Ireland semi-final. “We all said before the quarter-final draw that we wanted one of the big teams; Kerry, Cork or Tyrone. It was our coming out party as such.

“There are regrets, especially from my point of view as I won’t get another chance, but (the last few minutes against Cork) is not a bad thing to happen to the team in the longer run. The same with the Meath disaster.

“Okay, the same thing happened against Cork in the league final but they are bringing those experiences into the championship. They are in the memory bank. The lads know if they play their game the whole way to the end, they will win. If they don’t think about pressure, or how many thousand people are watching, they’ll be fine.”