By John Harrington

After ten days on a beach in Jamaica, Dublin defender Philly McMahon is rested and ready to go again in 2017.

The 29-year-old Ballymun man has clocked up a lot of miles in a stellar playing career that has seen him win four All-Ireland and four Allianz National League titles.

But despite all Dublin have won in recent years, McMahon remains as driven to succeed as ever.

Mentally he’s in a very good place, now he just needs to get his body up to speed in the coming days and weeks.

“The head is recharged,” says McMahon. I always say, 'you can recharge your head but your body has to follow then after'. When we go back training you want to really run hard, but your body doesn't adapt as quick as your head does.

“So when you have a period of downtime and you go on a holiday, your head gets in a good place and you get eager to go back and play, but your body has to follow. So it takes time for your body to get back into it.”

McMahon doesn’t drink or smoke and runs a business that produces and delivers healthy food, so he shouldn’t have to worry too much about shedding any winter excess in the coming weeks.

But despite his healthy habits, he admits it takes a while to hit top gear again when he returns to full-time training with Dublin.

“I've always tried to convince myself, when the lads are having a few drinks on the beach, that if I can eat sweets and chocolate and stuff then I'll be alright,” he says.

“Then for some reason every preseason I'm running beside these fellas and I'm going, 'I should be running past you because you were drinking'.

“It never happens really, so everyone is different. It depends how much mileage you have on the body, how much extra weight you're carrying, what age you are, there's loads of things you have to factor in.

“It's a mind over body thing. Once you can feel good and feel you're challenging yourself mentally, the body will come along as the sessions and the season continues on.”

McMahon loves the analytical side of playing Gaelic Football at the highest level.

In the Dublin camp, every player is constantly measured and provided with feedback. McMahon laps it up because he enjoys using every resource possible in order to fulfil his own potential.

“I love looking at the analytics, the statistics, the nutrition side of it, the physical side of it, the mental side of it, tactics, technical, I love the whole lot. It's kind of a new area, it's called performance training,” says McMahon.

“A good part of Paul O'Connell's book that I read was at the start, where he says he's always chasing to have his best performance.

“One of years he had a really good year and after that for the rest of his career he was always trying to get to that stage again. And that's similar to what I'm like.

"When you look back after the year you've had and say, 'Is there things I can improve on?' And you bring them into the next year.”

That practice of constantly trying to find a new edge is one preached by team manager, Jim Gavin.

The Dublin players had their first collective training session of the new year yesterday evening, and McMahon was expecting Gavin to challenge them in new ways like he does at the start of every season.

“Yeah, he's brought something new in every year,” he says. “You go and you're successful one year and your standards are at a certain point. The other counties then get up to those standards and if you don't get up to another level you're going to be knocked out or you're not going to win anything.

“It's what happened us in 2014 against Donegal, we didn't evolve, we didn't evolve on the pitch that day and you just have to be ready for every eventuality. We weren't ready that day, tactically, as players on the pitch, we didn't act and we faced the consequences for it.

“Every year Jim has brought something new to the set up and he freshens it up with new players coming in, he tactically changes things.

“I think most managers do it. We just need to set the standards and then go beyond it so that other teams have to try to get up to a higher standard I suppose.”

Motivation is easily sourced by McMahon and his team-mates because they know that hard work brings great reward.

Winning All-Irelands and going on team holidays to Jamaica are not the sort of experiences you tire of, and the Dublin defender is determined to have many more great memories banked before he eventually hangs up his boots.

“I just said to the lads going over on the plane to Jamaica, it's funny, the last ten years, Kerry would have done all those trips, and now we're getting the chance to do all these trips,” he says.

“So you can definitely see the shift in terms of the success - we’re getting all these things and they used to have them.

“I’m sure, because of that, there’s going to be a change in their set-up, culture, and performance. And other teams as well. Once you get a taste of it, you want it more and more and more.

“That’s what it’s about. You’ve only a short career so try and take as much out of it as you can.”

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Philly McMahon was speaking at the GAA Healthy Clubs launch.