It’s been a year of seemingly constant positives for St Vincent’s, All-Ireland club champions, back-to-back county and provincial titles, the only problem for them is that they’re still going.
For the club’s intercounty stars such as Ger Brennan and Diarmuid Connolly it’s been a 12 month-long season. The rest of the panel had just a five day turnaround from the 2013 All-Ireland final in March to the commencement of their next round of league games for the 2014 season, which at that point was already in full swing.
The result was fatigue, frustration, injuries, and for those fighting for an intercounty breakthrough the consequence of prolonged success means that for a number of St Vincent’s players their opportunity in a Dublin jersey may have long passed them by come next February or even March.
"Certainly guys who are looking to establish themselves in a panel it is naturally going to hurt," explains club captain Ger Brennan. "Maybe myself and Diarmuid we have been playing for a couple of years, the management would be pretty much aware of what we can offer. That's the reality of the season as it is at present. I'm hearing that we are looking to shorten and condense the season to one calendar year which would give an opportunity to those players.
“If everything was shortened, you could play two All-Ireland club semi-finals on a Saturday in the middle of November and have the two hurling semi-finals on a Sunday and have the finals at the end of November or the first weekend in December. You could have a double header in Croke Park.”
Brennan has been playing through the pain barrier for the past yearbut the centre-back will delay plans of surgery to bed in search of more silverware. But his body couldn’t always keep up and he did not feature in any of last year’s championship games for Dublin.
“I picked up an Achilles thing towards Paddy’s Day last year. When I went back with Dublin it really hurt in training. It can be constant. . . Going into games it would be particularly sore and then after games it would swell up. There is the option of a procedure but that could put me back a few more weeks. So I am not going to do that.”
Intensity
A mainstay in the team’s half back line particularly during the
Pat Gilroy
era, in recent times his injuries have swept away any assurances regarding that number six Dublin jersey.
Jim Gavin
has other options in the position, albeit his defence-first thinking was lacking when Donegal exposed them in last summer’s All-Ireland semi-final.
“If it didn’t clear up I was knackered because you couldn’t play at that intensity and not have your full wits about you. I’m going to rest up now (over Christmas). I won’t do a whole lot of running over the next few weeks, stay in the gym, cycling, swimming to keep aerobically fit. You learn to deal with these things and how to cope with them. You have to tailor your training regime to ensure that you are fit come the game. I will continue to do that.”
Brennan insists that injury concerns have not stinted his ambitions in a Dublin jersey, he’s setting the bar high for both club and county once more in 2015.
“I want to finish playing on a high. I want to win another Leinster and All-Ireland in the county. I want to win it by playing and not sitting on the sideline or coming in or out. That’s my personal aim and that’s something I will have to work on to put questions in Jim Gavin’s mind to make sure that I am in the team. I will worry about that after this run with the club.”
