Pressure on champions Dublin, says Donaghy

Kieran Donaghy stretches his giant frame into one of the plush leather chairs in Setanta Sports’ HQ in Dublin, leans back and fields questions in the same easy-going manner he approaches playing football.

He’s in Dublin to promote Setanta’s coverage of the 2012 Allianz Leagues and the upcoming season-opener against All-Ireland champions Dublin in Croke Park.

It’s still pre-season, months away from the debilitating pressures of the Championship, which can muzzle even the most outspoken players, and Donaghy is in the mood to talk.

Inevitably, the conversation drifts to the subject of rivalries: how Kerry and Tyrone drove each other on and arguably took the game to new levels during the last decade, and the emergence of a potentially riveting new chapter in the Dublin-Kerry story.

Donaghy, however, seems more interested in talking about the pressures Dublin will face in attempting to defend their All-Ireland title. As a member of the only team to win back-to-back All-Ireland titles in the last 20 years, with Kerry in 2006 and ’07, he’s speaking from experience.

“The years we win the All-Ireland everyone wants to beat us,” Donaghy says in an interview with www.gaa.ie.

“Dublin will find that this year. Everyone will want to beat them that bit more because they are All-Ireland champions and it’s a nice thing to say, ‘Oh, we beat the All-Ireland champions last week’.

“That’s what they will come up against in every League game and I’m sure they even felt it against Kildare the last day (in the O’Byrne Cup semi-final). The two teams mightn’t have been at full strength, say Championship strength, but Kildare will still be quite happy to say they beat the All-Ireland champions Dublin.

“That’s what they will face going into every game over a tough League and Championship and that’s what they are going to have. That’s the pressure that comes with being All-Ireland champions.

“It’s quite hard to do it back-to-back and that’s been proven. That’s the challenge they face. They have the team to do it, it’s whether they get the breaks of the ball this year.

“You’re getting to Croke Park and you’re just looking for a bounce of a ball to go your way and you win it. There will only be eight teams that get there this year to All-Ireland quarter-finals and all it’s about is trying to win it.”

Losing to Dublin in last year’s All-Ireland final was probably harder to accept for Donaghy than it was for any other Kerry player. He kicked a memorable equalising point – a monstrous effort from under the Cusack Stand – 30 seconds from time and looked to have sent the game to a replay. We all know what happened next...

It took three full months to get it out of his system. The return of the familiar routine that comes with the start of the season has helped the healing process. But does he still stew over losing a game Kerry, arguably, dominated?

“You probably do, yeah. You probably do for the rest of that year. I was lucky enough to go to Australia with the International Rules and that was a good distraction for me for three weeks, to be playing and winning out there.

“I came home and I had club championship and we had a county league with Austin Stacks so that was another healthy distraction to keep my mind off the game.

“Then, obviously, you have nothing to do for a few weeks. Setanta do a great job in showing it about 500 times a week so when you are flicking through the channels and you see Dublin v Kerry you just keep going. You don’t want to watch it any more. You can’t really look at it anyway from a Kerry point of view.

“The point I was trying to get to really was that when you get back to the New Year and you get back training it is kind of forgotten about really. It goes away because there is a new focus and a new game to look forward to. There are new challenges.

“You don’t have time to think about it because you are training, watching your diet, doing weights, stretching, going to the physio, going back to training. Life takes over again for however many months you are lucky enough to be in it (the Championship) for.

“That’s what I mean by it’s good to have those distractions. Once you turn a new year after losing an All-Ireland, that pain eases a small bit.”

Donaghy has been hobbled by a hip flexor injury for the last few weeks but is back in training ahead of the Dublin game, which will mark his first competitive game of the year as Kerry opted not to play in the McGrath Cup.

“You couldn’t ask for a tougher start than Dublin in Croke Park but you also couldn’t ask for a more enjoyable game. It’s something we look forward to," he says.

“We often play League games and there might be a small crowd there on a wet and rainy night on a bad pitch. Croke Park under the lights with 80,000 there to cheer Dublin on, and hopefully a few will travel up from Kerry for the weekend considering the rugby is on the day after. It’ll be a nice weekend for sport.

“Setanta have certainly picked a very good game to start off the League with and I look forward to it.”