Jiu-jitsu and soccer keep Fitzsimons fresh but hunger for success never goes stale

Michael Fitzsimons is talking about playing five-a-side soccer and dabbling in jiu-jitsu, but he is also talking about how fight and desire remain present within the Dublin dressingroom.

It might be the most medal-laden dressingroom in the history of the game, but Sam Maguire has been residing outside of the capital now for two years, so there is an obvious target for the Dubs to chase down.

The return of Paul Mannion and Jack McCaffrey indicates they are getting the band back together for a substantial tour in 2023, but despite all their achievements Fitzsimons feels there has never been a dip in the squad’s hunger levels over the years.

“Nothing changes too much. Each year you go out you are there to win it,” he says.

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“When you lose you are obviously frustrated for the immediate aftermath and you look back and review it and think what you could have done. But in our case, you look back at the previous years when you got over the line and are thankful that we haven’t lost that many games by a point, we’ve been on the right side of most of them.

“And by the time you get back in January it’s not, it doesn’t make a huge difference is what I’m trying to say.”

His main focus now is on Cuala’s upcoming clash against Ballinteer, where the Dalkey outfit need to win to avoid a league relegation scrap. And yet these are far from concerning days for Cuala, in fact the club has rarely looked to be on such a positive footing.

On Thursday at Croke Park they held a sponsorship announcement event that would make many county boards envious. Amgen’s renewal to be Cuala’s title sponsor until the end of the 2024 season is about as far from the local hotel covering a set of jerseys as you can get.

The partnership with the Dún Laoghaire-based biotech company also extends to education and employment incentives, with Amgen providing one main bursary and four supplemental bursaries annually to Cuala students who are entering a third-level institution to study STEM subjects, manufacturing, supply chain management, healthcare or teaching science in school. It also sees the company provide a paid internship to a student from Cuala each year.

During the off-season last year, Fitzsimons was among a group of Dublin footballers who tried their hand at some Brazilian jiu-jitsu in John Kavanagh’s Straight Blast Gym.

“It was something different and it keeps you fresh. When you’re playing football it’s like anything, when it’s the same thing over and over again you can get a little bit burnt out with it.

“But when you play a different sport or try a different activity it gives you a different perspective and you can bring something back to football. We did that last year, this year I have done a bit of five-a-side.”

Fitzsimons admits he has not spent the last while stewing over Seán O’Shea’s match-winning free for Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final.

“There’s no point in ruminating over it for three months, you just think ‘If I ever get the chance do it again what will I do next time?’ There are so many little moments.

“Like, you think of Mayo and all those games they’ve played against us, they have obviously beaten us since then and fair play to them, but back then it was so tough on them, those tiny moments. You don’t think of that when you win a game, it just completely papers over the cracks of those little things ‘oh I failed there’ or ‘that could have cost us’. It’s just a fleeting thought.”

Fitzsimons says he is not looking ‘too far ahead’ with regards to whether he is totally locked in for Dublin next year, but for now it remains the case that only two players could make history in 2023 by winning an unprecedented ninth All-Ireland SFC – Fitzsimons and James McCarthy.

“You wouldn’t be counting, you wouldn’t be thinking about that stuff,” he says. “Other people might be different but that’s just the way I work and I imagine James is quite similar.

“It’s just about the team and trying to win for the team. And it’s not even necessarily winning, it’s trying to put yourself in the best position and prepare as best you can to get a performance because that’s the best part of it.

“It’s no fun winning a game where we just got completely lucky. Obviously in a final you’ll take that, but it’s not sustainable, especially in the league and stuff like that. You get the most enjoyment out of the league and earlier rounds when you execute something and you can feel that progress.”