By John Harrington

Wicklow’s record against the Dublin footballers makes for pretty dismal reading if you’re a native of the Garden County.

The two teams have played one another 12 times in the Championship and 18 times in the League, which unfortunately for Wicklow adds up to 30 straight defeats.

There have been a few hard-luck stories along the way, none more so that the 1981 Leinster SFC Quarter-Final the two teams contested.

Wicklow lost that match by 0-12 to 0-10, but in the dying embers of the game very nearly pulled a famous win out of the fire.

Midfielder Pat O’Byrne’s snap-shot looked destined for the bottom right-hand corner of the net, but Dublin goalkeeper John O’Leary somehow manged to dive to his left and tip it onto the post.

His reflexes saved Dublin and won him an award later that year for the save of the Championship, rubbing salt into Wicklow wounds.

It’s one of those moments of Championship football that has been largely forgotten, but for both O’Byrne and O’Leary the memory remain vivid.

“It was a low shot with my left foot and I've never used it since!”, chuckles O’Byrne. “I wouldn't have been renowned for my left-footed shots!

“It was nearly the last kick of the game. Had it went in, we would have won the match.

“It was going right into the corner at the right-hand post but he got across to it. Sure, I made John O'Leary!”

O’Leary’s recollection of the day is crystal clear because it was a very important milestone in his long and illustrious career.

The previous year he’d made his Championship debut in Dublin’s Leinster Final defeat to Offaly, but that day passed by in a blur because he only found out an hour before throw-in that he’d be playing.

The Leinster Quarter-Final against Wicklow in 1981 was his second Championship match, but by now he was established as Dublin’s first choice goalkeeper and he knew he’d be starting.

So winning the match for Dublin with that last-gasp save felt like a coming of age moment for the then 19-year-old.

“I just remember near the end of the game the ball dropped into the square and there was a bit of a fumbling around and then Pat O'Byrne kicked it and I managed to save it with my left hand and tip it onto the post,” says O’Leary.

“It was one of those reflex saves, he was fairly close and just pulled on the ball.

“I got down low and tipped it onto to the post and luckily the ball rebounded back into my hands and I think Pat landed on top of me after that. He threw a dig at the ball to try to knock it out but caught me as well so I got a free.

“I was only 19 and I remember Mick Holden grabbed me, lifted me up off the ground and gave me a shake and looked at me in the face and said, 'That was a bloody great save, well done'.

“It was one of those things that happened very quickly at the time, and the significance of it only sunk in afterwards because I think the final whistle blew quite quickly after that and we only won by two points.

“It was great excitement and then obviously you get a bit of profile. I did my first TV interview afterwards with Michael Dunne up on the scaffolding where the tv cameras were.

“I'm sure I looked a bit gawky doing that interview, I'd hate to see it played back!”

O’Leary’s career would blossom in the following years as he made 70 consecutive championship appearances for Dublin, winning two All-Irelands, three National Leagues and five All-Star awards.

Pat O’Byrne would go on to establish himself as one of the finest midfielders in the country over the course of a 16-year career, but without anything like the same material success.

He looks back now on that 1981 defeat to Dublin as a missed opportunity. 

Wicklow had a talented team at the time, and had they pulled off a famous victory that day it might have been a launchpad for even greater things.

“The majority of that team would have been over six foot, bar one or two, and they were all good footballers,” says O’Byrne.

“Possibly that was the most talented team we had. If we had a different manager, says you, at the time...but they were different times.

“That Wicklow team at that stage wasn't the fittest team in the world. If we had been training at all we could have done a lot better.

“We had great players throughout the field. The likes of Tommy Murphy, Mosie (Coffey), (Pat) Baker, and Pat O'Toole. We did a bit of training, but we weren't doing as much as Dublin, they were a fitter.

“But with a bit of luck we could have won that day and it probably would have changed things.”

O’Byrne might not have won much silverware with Wicklow, but he would earn the respect of his peers and a high profile nationally with his performances for Ireland against Australia in the International Rules series of ’86, ’87, and 1990.

That ’86 tour is particularly infamous because Ireland famously fought fire with fire when the Australians tried to physically intimidate them, and O’Byrne in particular put his farmer’s strength to good use.

“They tried to rough us around a bit but it didn't work,” laughs O’Byrne.

“Myself, Mick Lyons, Brian McGilligan, and a few other sorted them out. I suppose we were able to look after ourselves.”

John O’Leary was a team-mate of O’Byrne’s on that ’86 tour to Australia, and but for a quirk of fate might have also played alongside him for Wicklow and never been in a position to stop his shot in ’81.

O’Leary went on to become one of the most famous Dublin footballers of his era, but his mother was a Wicklow woman and he lived in Bray before the family moved to Balbriggan.

“Yeah, I lived in Bray,” says O’Leary. “My mother is from Kilmacanogue, just outside Bray, at the bottom of the Sugar Loaf.

“My father was a Garda in Bray. At that time one of the Garda rules was that if you married locally you had to be transferred, so we had to move to Balbriggan.

“If that rule wasn't there maybe I would have ended up staying in Bray and playing for Wicklow. That was the hand of fate.”

Wicklow supporters will surely reflect that hand of fate has done them few favours over the years as they still wait for their first ever win over the Dubs.