By John Harrington

After Kilmacud Crokes were beaten in the Quarter-Final of the Dublin Football Championship last year, Dublin footballer Paul Mannion packed his bags and hit the road.

Travel is his passion, and he certainly indulged it with a series of trips that took him to Antwerp, Amsterdam, Budapest, Manchester, New York, Chicago, Washington, Austin, Miami, Panama, and Colombia before he finished with the Dublin team holiday to South Africa in January.

The highlight of it all? A four-day boat-trip around the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama.

Soft white sand, warm Caribbean water, no internet, no telephones, just chilled out perfection.

It all seems like a long time ago now though. That jet-setting was partly a reward for completing his Masters Degree in Digital Innovation, but he’s back in the real world now as a newly-minted member of the workforce.

“Yeah, eventually it was time to become a real human being and do some work,” says Mannion with a wry smile.

He’s found out the hard way that combining his Gaelic Football commitments with Dublin with a full-time job as a Consulting Analyst has been a balancing act that has taken some getting used to.

“It was certainly different being a student,” admitted Mannion when he spoke today at the launch of the 2018 John West National GAA Féile competitions in Croke Park.

“When you're a student you have so much time off whereas I'd have early mornings now.

“I'm up at seven in the morning and wouldn't be getting home until 10 o’clock. Those days can be quite tough.

“The hardest part is just that you're tired a lot of the day. You'd nearly be falling asleep at work and then you're going training and you're feeling exhausted trying to get up to go training.

“It's difficult, but I'm only a couple of months in and it's something that I'll learn to manage.

“The rest of the lads on the team have been doing it for years so they're all looking at me now and thinking, 'Yeah, it's about time!' I'll learn, definitely.”

Dublin supporters will certainly hope that Mannion’s energy levels will be where they need to be for the Championship, because he was a crucial cog in their All-Ireland winning machine last year.

He scored 0-17 points from play over the course of the campaign to deliver what was comfortably his most consistent and effective summer in the sky blue jersey yet.

“Certainly it was my most enjoyable year,” admitted the 24-year-old.

“It was my best year on the field of play. I don't particularly know why it was the case that it was last year.

“I suppose I've grown older a bit, I've grown physically stronger as well I guess. I had to kind of step up and have a good year.

“In the past I probably felt that I didn't show as good a version of myself as I could have, I guess. Really, really glad to have had that year and just focused now to try and repeat it.

“I don't want to be known as having one good year, I have to be consistent and give consistent performances. You want to top it all the time. When Dublin starts that's the sole focus now.”

As much as Mannion enjoyed his globe-trotting at the end of last year, it also felt good to get back out onto a football pitch when he finally put his passport back up on a high shelf.

As he says himself, playing football is simply what he loves doing. And he knows he’s fortunate to have come along at a time when Dublin have an abundance of players who combine that love for the game with a special talent for playing it.

“I feel lucky to be part of this team, to have enjoyed the success we have had over the last number of years,” said Mannion.

“As best we can, we’ll try and focus on our next game this season. We’re hungry (to keep winning).

“We’re looking for consistency, and again a performance. That’s all we’re focused on now. We’re in a position to keep driving it on.

“We’re acutely aware of what we’re representing; the county, the people, the values.

“We take great pride in that, we want to do the jersey justice every time we take to the field, on and off the field. That’s the kind of culture we’re trying to foster.

“Maybe it hasn’t sunk in even yet. It’ll be years gone by when we look back and enjoy it.

“We’ll try and keep it going. We’re hungry for more.”