Dean Healy still thriving and setting standards for Wicklow

​By Paul Keane

In September of 2010, Wicklow GAA invited the national media down to the Arklow Bay Hotel for an announcement regarding the future of manager Mick O'Dwyer. The Kerry great, it was confirmed, was staying on for a fifth season at the helm, his last as it happened.

A couple of months later, in the 2011 National League, O'Dwyer doled out a National League debut to a young Dean Healy.

The St Patrick's clubman didn't actually play in the Championship that year but a seed had been sown.

A full 15 years on, Healy lifted the Tailteann Cup last weekend in the Hogan Stand, a win for the Garden County that perhaps even eclipsed the Tommy Murphy Cup title won under O'Dwyer in 2007.

His importance to the group, not just as captain but talisman performer, is immeasurable and it was fitting that when the team convened to celebrate Saturday's landmark win, it was to the Arklow Bay Hotel again that they returned.

Healy, 34, isn't just Wicklow's longest serving player at this stage but he is also the last inter-county player still going to have featured under Kingdom legend O'Dwyer.

The hope around Wicklow after watching Healy rip it up against Down last weekend, shooting a stunning solo goal in the comeback win and winning the man of the match award, is that the veteran midfielder, and father of three, sticks around for 2027.

"Listen, if you find me a babysitter for three kids first," smiled Healy. "But no, if I stay healthy, if the family stays healthy...I'm very fortunate with the partner that I do have, and the family we have around us.

"There's nights that I've left for training or whatever and Jennifer is there trying to put three different kids to sleep, with three different sleep routines.

"I know how fortunate I am to be able to get out, like I do. It's just a different thing when you have kids.

"Myself and Jen, we were only talking a couple of weeks ago, I don't know where we were coming back from, but we were saying it's now at a stage where Rian is getting older and she was saying, 'I'd love for you to stay going long enough for him to remember some part of it'.

"But that would be very selfish on my part too, because you should want to stay around to add to a collective group. It shouldn't be about appearances or anything else but as I said, listen...."

If you can do it, you'll stay?

"That's it, 100 percent," he continued. "Football has done more for me in many perspectives than I can ever give back to football."

O'Dwyer also enjoyed a memorable win over Down when he was in charge of Wicklow, back in 2009. The Waterville maestro guided his adopted Leinster county to the final round of the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers that season. Those are big boots that McConville is filling.

"We're a collective group but I do think that what Oisín alone has instilled in us is huge," said Healy. "I don't know if it's the northern mentality, that sort of thriving in adversity, but we stay going. We had some bad setbacks throughout the course of this year, and throughout the four years with Oisín, but we've always stayed at it."

Healy joked with teammate Malachy Stone in the dressing-room after Saturday's win about retiring and watching the team play in next year's All-Ireland SFC.

"I was slagging Malachy that I'll be watching him trying to mark David Clifford next year in Aughrim," he said. "It's amazing. You talk about dreams, I never dreamed that I'd be walking up the Hogan Stand steps to lift the equivalent of an All-Ireland title for Wicklow."

It didn't appear at half time that Healy was going to be required to lift the cup as captain. At that stage, Down were 2-10 to 0-4 up.

"Funnily, there were no magic speeches, no shouting or anything," he said of the interval chat. "We just said that as a group, 'This is not us, lads. It can't get any worse than this. Instead of trying to chase these Down boys, can we try to make it that they have to start chasing us?'

"I just knew when we got it back to three points that there was only going to be one winner. Even with the black card in the last few minutes, there was only going to be one winner."

Wicklow could, and probably should, have beaten Dublin in the Leinster SFC too. And they tossed away a big lead against Longford in the National League that cost them promotion from Division 4.

"Genuinely, I've never been in a game where we were in such control and then for us to capitulate," said Healy of the Longford tie. "And I don't think that's bad luck. I think that's on us as a group, collectively.

"We highlighted it afterwards, that every opportunity we had we seemed to think we were going to get a goal from it. We were eight, nine points up. A simple score makes it 10.

"And it makes them have to kick the ball back out to us. We definitely learned a lot from experiences like that throughout the course of the year."