Hello Dublin

If things had been different the new Dublin boss could have been in Cork this weekend charged with the task of guiding DCU to their first Sigerson final since 2006.

Instead Pat Gilroy will be busy preparing for next week’s encounter with Donegal, where both sides will be looking for their first win of the league campaign.

He was involved with DCU for about a month. He had some meetings at the time but no training sessions. Everything was only just getting off the ground when he got the call to manage his county.

Since that day last October sceptics have been quick to question the appointment of a rookie manager with little experience but Gilroy feels he has nothing to prove.

“All I want to do is see Dublin be as successful as possible. I enjoy doing the job and I think the management team I have are very experienced.

“I have a lot of experience in the game myself and I don’t feel I really have to answer myself any or these people. They judge me by results at the end of the day.”

Ironically the management team is the same one that Gilroy would have been part of at the university. He believes that the roles of Prof Niall Moyna and Mickey Whelan in moving Dublin forward will be “vastly important”.

“What they bring to the physical side, fitness side is better than anything else probably available in the country to a large degree.

“You’re not going to get guys who have better knowledge not just of Gaelic sports but of all sports. They’re bringing that knowledge based on a lot of research that they’re doing during their college work as well so they’re hugely, hugely important to me.”

Despite suffering consecutive defeats at the hands of Kerry and Tyrone in the opening games, Gilroy maintains he is happy with the progress being made.

“The boys are working hard. It’s still very early in the season. We’re making mistakes in games but this is the time to be making them.

“We’re happy with how things are going, they’re a good bunch of players and it’s just a matter of getting used to the way we want to play. I think it’s important that in the league every game we go out to try and win it first of all so we’re competitive in every game.

“We also have to try things; we have to try fellas in different positions because at the end of the day if Dublin are coming up short there’s no point in doing things the exact same way.

“The last couple of years they haven’t gone the whole way so the main thing is we’ve got to learn things from the league.

“The way football and hurling works is that the real business happens in the summer and at the end of the day of course we want to be winning the games. But if we are learning things each game that’s really important for us.”

He reveals combining the extra responsibilities of being an intercounty manager with the day to day running of a business isn’t easy but is manageable all the same.

“I think we set out rules about how we could engage because I have a family, a job and the Dublin job so if you were taking phone calls from the media every day of the week you just wouldn’t get to do anything so we set up a press conference structure and issue a press statement so we’re able to control it and manage it. So far so good.”

The St.Vincents man describes the training facilities here at DCU as “invaluable” to his squad of players. He admits competitions like the Sigerson Cup, which will conclude this weekend, do have an impact on the squad.

“We have four or five guys heavily involved in Sigerson. It’s not huge but we also have fellas involved in the under 21 but I suppose all of that is finished by the end of March early April and you’d have a full squad then.

“Plus we have Kilmacud guys. Of the first team we’re out about twelve nearly all the time because of Kilmacud, Sigerson and also under 21 so we’re short players for each game.

“But that’s good because you get to try other guys as well. We have a very large squad because of that. Really we only have thirty available to us at all times.”

This will be the 14th summer since Dublin last reached an All Ireland final in 1995. That day they were triumphant with Gilroy impacting as a second half substitute. Is there a pressure to meet fans expectations?

“I’m not so sure the fans are expectant because after the heavy defeat last year I think people don’t expect an awful lot necessarily from the team.

I suppose once the summer comes it gets a bit more but I think the thing for us is we need to improve this team and take it to another level so hopefully if we can get them to an All Ireland Final that would be improvement and then you never know what happens after that.” he says.

Pat Gilroy knows the task that lies ahead. For now though he is happy to learn from each game and make small improvements along the way.