Niall Ó Ceallacháin excited to return to Croke Park with Dublin

​By Paul Keane

For a first season in inter-county management, Niall Ó Ceallacháin packed a lot into 2025 with Dublin.

If you were inclinced to distil it all right down to the very highest and lowest moments, you could look at Dublin's three games at Croke Park, the venue they return to this evening.

Two of those games at Croke Park they lost, to Offaly and Cork. The one they won? Against Limerick, of course, a landmark result not just for Dublin hurling but in the entire history of the Championship.

"Varied experiences alright," smiled Ó Ceallacháin. "Obviously the highlight was the Limerick game and then a couple of weeks later we had a big low of the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork.

"Do you draw on those experiences? Of course you do. And the more big games in Croke Park, and exposure to that sort of challenge, that we can get the better. That's where we want to be, to be able to perform in Croke Park on a consistent level against the high-end teams, which is what Wexford are and the likes of Limerick and Cork obviously."

Ó Ceallacháin mentions Wexford because of this evening's summit with the south easterners. Which brings us to that other Croke Park loss in 2025, against Offaly. Because there are a lot of similarities between this evening's Division 1B encounter and that game against Offaly last year which, incidentally, was a year to the day tomorrow.

Dublin led Offaly by two points four minutes into stoppage time but conceded three late points and the loss pretty much prevented them from gaining promotion to Division 1A.

"I think it's really relevant," said Ó Ceallacháin of that tie 12 months ago. "It's the same fixture in a lot of ways. It's Croke Park, it's a double header with the footballers again. We took our learnings out of that game performance-wise a good while ago and we fed them into the group, so we wouldn't be looking back on it from that point of view.

"It's more that it's kind of a similar fixture as regards the importance of it in League terms. This fixture, from an outcome perspective, as far as where it falls in the League, and the momentum it can give us for the next few weeks, is very similar to the Offaly game. A very, very similar challenge."

Ó Ceallacháin doesn't sugar coat it, if Dublin lose then they'll probably miss out on promotion again. Or at the very least they'll need some 'stroke of luck' to fall their way regarding other results in the coming weeks.

"For us, we have no safety net," he said, referencing their Round 1 loss to Clare in Ennis. "If we lose this game it's looking quite bleak for the following few weeks having lost to Clare on the first day. So it's all on the line Saturday."

Wexford and Clare are currently joint top of 1B though those two teams have yet to meet. Dublin, meanwhile, sit on two points with a game less played than both of their promotion rivals.

"For Dublin, 1A is where we need to be, basically, we need to be able to compete and to be winning at that level week on week because that can prepare you really well for the Championship, when it comes to it," said Ó Ceallacháin.

"We lost out to Waterford and to Offaly last year in the League so we're in 1B. That's the reality and we're trying to make the most out of it but 1A is where we need to be and we certainly want to be in 1A for 2027."

There's another Croke Park game from last year that we didn't mention, which Ó Ceallacháin also had a central role in. At the beginning of 2025, when he was briefly double jobbing, he managed his native Na Fianna to the AIB All-Ireland club title.

His season ended at Croke Park too, against Cork in a hail of goals and points, most of which were fired by the Rebels. Cork clocked up 7-26 in that All-Ireland semi-final.

In the press conference after the game, Ó Ceallacháin was asked if he should have deployed a sweeper.

"Should I be criticised today? Absolutely, it didn't work," he responded. "But what I would say is that with the alternative (using a sweeper), you won't lose by 20 points like what we lost there - but you will lose the game."

Ó Ceallacháin was given more food for thought by Tipperary's decision to go with a sweeper, Bryan O'Mara, for the subsequent All-Ireland decider and the success of that tactical move.

You put it to the Dublin manager that if he had lined out with a seventh defender, and buttressed the back line, he'd have been breaking away from a system that had just taken down Limerick?

"It's a funny one, I could probably easily say that alright, around we'd have been moving away from our system, but so did Liam Cahill," he responded. "He did it, and it worked out for him. So fair play to them for doing that. I don't know, and that's the honest answer, if you had it all over again, I don't know.

"It's obvious in hindsight based on the outcome of the semi-final and the final, so the easy thing is to say we would do something different and change it up, if we had our time again. There's pros and cons to all those things. It worked out really well for Liam Cahill and for Bryan O'Mara and for Tipperary.

"But it's never as black and white. It wasn't the only driver (in losing to Cork) either. I could spend a lot longer with you on it but the short answer to your question is, if we could have it all over again and do things different? I don't know."