Jack McCaffrey: ‘After my hamstring exploded for the 10th time, I was thinking ‘what am I doing’?’

The idea in the run-in to Christmas is for Jack McCaffrey to run through his journey back on to the Dublin football team and a sixth All-Ireland title and then finish up with his participation in the Goal Mile.

He does get there, in the end, via a circuitous route. He will not bore you. From where he is now in Galway city – “it does rain a frightening amount” – to the Freetown vibe on the coast of Sierra Leone – “a cultural melting pot like I’ve never seen before in my life” – where his journey began. McCaffrey is never less than engaging and entertaining.

In between, he shares his insight and experience of the Irish medical profession, his strong belief in the need for a National Children’s Hospital, and why he believes fundraising events such as the Goal Mile are so critical right now.

Exactly where McCaffrey is now is the neonates ward at University Hospital Galway, part of the five-year programme in higher specialist training in general paediatrics. He’s had that calling for a while now.

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“For me, I always enjoyed working with kids, from being involved with the GAA and coaching,” he says. “Clontarf is a great club for getting teenage boys and girls involved in coaching early on, so that was always in the back of my mind, starting out in college.

“I don’t think paediatrics jumped out hugely at first, then I decided on an intern job which involved three months’ paediatrics and I just loved it. Kids are just great, and adults are just that bit too complicated!

“Probably not specifically the neonates, this year has to be done regardless of where you’re going to end up. For me, I prefer having that bit of a chat with the kids, knocking some fun out of them, which you can’t really do with babies, but of course they are good fun in their own way.

“So doing six months of that here, in Galway, then heading back up to Holles Street in January.”

There is no official record for the number of missed days between All-Ireland-winning seasons, although McCaffrey’s count of 1,087 does stand out. From that rainy exit night in Omagh in February 2020, to his 58th minute introduction at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in February of this year.

He has spoken before about what drew him away, how he fell out of love with the game, surprising as that sounds for a player always able to see the lighter side of things.

“The one I always associate with [it] is looking forward going to training, happy to be there hours before. And then there are times you’re sitting at home, training starts in an hour, and you’re thinking ‘do I actually have to go to this?’

“I’d experienced both and I’m always at a bit of a loss to explain what changes to shift that dynamic, but it just does. In football and in other spheres, I have to listen to the signals my mind and body are sending me.

“Sometimes I’ve tried to power through, and fight against it, with pretty poor results. So I just have to trust it.”

The journey which slowly drew him back began with his work experience with Goal in Sierra Leone at the start of last year, and gained speed when he returned home for an operation on an accidental wrist injury, the day before Kerry beat Galway in the 2022 All-Ireland final. Just like that, McCaffrey was back.

“It was probably a bit more surreptitious than that. I was away with Goal at the time, in Sierra Leone, still keeping half an eye on it, and had probably deconditioned physically myself. So, for kind of my own health, I was trying to get back into some sort of fighting shape.

“It kind of just crept up on me, and I don’t think anyone was as surprised as I was. It was three seasons away, and I’d probably made peace with the fact that was that. Then I’d a couple of chats with Paul Mannion, who was in a similar boat, a couple of chats with my parents, who are always good sounding boards for me. And just decided ‘look, I’ll give it a go again’.

“There was a very, very real possibility that I would not be fit, not be efficient enough at football any more to be able to contribute, or that Dessie [Farrell] would say thanks, but no thanks.

“Thankfully none of those actually happened and it was a great year. Looking back on it now, to be able to get back into that environment, at that level, is something I was very lucky to have the opportunity to do.”

What took him to Sierra Leone in the first instance was to gain a deeper understanding of the Africa he first experienced at age 12, when the McCaffrey family spent the summer in Zambia, then again in 2016, when he took his first extended time out from Dublin football to further pursue his medical career.

“It had been niggling at me for a while to go back to do something with low income countries. I was actually feeling a little burnt out from the medical side of things, wanted a break on that front too, so I went and did a diploma in Tropical Medicine over in Liverpool.

“So I just approached Goal again. I wasn’t looking for a clinical role, didn’t want to work in a hospital, but there was a health management programme available in Sierra Leone, and so I went down to Freetown. I had to come back a little early after I broke my wrist, but for me it was a great challenge, obviously a very different set-up to anything in Ireland, to what you get caught up in in Ireland, and a very steep learning curve.”

He’ll go back again someday.

“Goal are a huge organisation, and do get a lot of their funding from contracts and partnerships with other multinational NGOs, but the fundraising from the Goal Mile, smaller independent things like that, gives them the ability to have an emergency fund, where they can respond to something global that’s going on.

“There is a massive amount of flexibility that is afforded to them by that independent fundraising. Sometimes people can be a little cynical about what small fundraising in a country like Ireland can do. But when you see the war in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza at the moment, for Goal to have that bit of independence, that kind of backing, is massive, and I was lucky enough to see that first hand. That’s always worth reiterating around things like the Goal Mile every year.”

Now 30, more than a decade on from his teenage debut and first All-Ireland-winning season of 2013, McCaffrey declares his current level of fitness as the finest it’s ever been for the month of December. There were reports he’s done some winter training with Salthill-Knocknacarra, which did not in fact transpire. His winter training has instead taken an entirely different route.

“I hate the gym. As in literally, passionately, despise going into a gym to lift weights. But I was looking more for a social connection down here in Galway, meet a few new people outside the hospital, and a pal of mine who lives down here asked me along to the CrossFit.

“And it’s been great, a different kind of stimulus in the off-season compared to say soccer, or some long-distance running. I probably had the idea in my head it was just physical monstrosities throwing massively heavy objects around the place, and there is a bit of that, but all the exercises are scaled, and it’s so varied, and I’m hoping it’s a bit injury-preventative.

“And I’m probably the fittest I’ve been all this year, in December. Which is of limited use to anybody from a Gaelic football point of view, but it’s nice to hopefully set things up for a good tilt at next year.”

Still, those three seasons away weren’t entirely risk-free, that realisation first brought on when he tried to sprint absolutely flat out once again.

“There were definitely some doubts, would I be able to do it? And maybe there’s a certain bit of arrogance. But I think most people who are involved in high-level sport need to have a bit of an ego, back themselves that they can compete, can perform like that. So I had to back myself as well, and did.

“The fact of the matter is I probably didn’t get there, because at several points in the season I pulled up with hamstring injuries, which were probably a bit of a response to the sudden increase and load I was putting my body under.

“But I took great confidence from small things, even early in the season, tagging an opposition forward, the few brief cameos in the league where I was able to demonstrate to Dessie and to myself that I was still in a position to contribute on the pitch.

“I’d also made peace with the fact that mightn’t be the case, and I would have been happy just to be around the dressing room and maybe influence younger players. While I didn’t get back to what I would consider 100 per cent, I’ve gained a lot of confidence from that, and that has me really excited again for next year.”

He will be busy again in 2024 and, although much closer to home at Holles Street, prepared for all the demands that lie ahead.

“I’m always very loath to say, ‘you’re busy at work and that affects football’, or ‘you’re playing football and that affects work’, or anything like that. But I am certainly going to need to go above and beyond my usual organisational skills just to make sure the two things can complement each other again next year.

“If I enjoyed my day-to-day job any less, they’d be much bigger issues. And the other thing to go back to, and it’s not a fetishisation or anything like that, but for some reason medicine is sometimes held up as this outrageously gruelling career.

“And it is tough, in a lot of ways, but I’ve got friends who started off in big law firms and were working 6am to midnight, six days a week. Or intercounty friends who come from farming backgrounds and have no guarantee of any time off work, and the work is physically, literally, back-breaking.

“Most careers do involve a bit of graft at the start, and there are some serious challenges facing the HSE, but unfortunately there are serious challenges facing the Defence Forces, the gardaí, and I would not want to be the Minister for Health at the moment anyway. But the worst thing that could have been done was to not build a new children’s hospital.”

He’ll be home for the Goal Mile at St Anne’s Park in Raheny on Christmas morning, his father Noel’s birthday. And if he takes that opportunity to run through his journey back, he wouldn’t change a thing.

“Maybe when the old hamstring exploded for the 10th time, and I’d be thinking ‘what am I doing?’ But in the grand scheme [of things] it was an amazing year, with an amazing group, I was on the pitch at the end of an All-Ireland final which we won, an incredible place to be. So the positives far, far outweigh any of the negatives that popped up along the way.”

For the list of GOAL Mile locations see www.goalmile.org/locations