By John Harrington

For a player some seem to think can be ‘got at’ on the field of play, Diarmuid Connolly showed plenty of poise off it yesterday.

He was at the launch of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship series at the GAA’s National Games Development centre in Abbotstown, and was the interviewee of most interest for the media there to cover it.

Westmeath manager Tom Cribbin had admitted after Sunday’s Leinster Final that his team went out with a plan to ‘entice’ Connolly and were ‘looking for him to get excited’.

Connolly received a yellow-card in the game after tangling with James Dolan when the Westmeath defender patted him on the head, but yesterday was much cooler in the face of a steady barrage of questions that came his way.

The Dolan incident was defused quickly, with Connolly shrugging his shoulders and suggesting the possibility that he is now a marked man is simply something not worth worrying about.

“Yeah, so they're saying,” he said. “I didn't hear the comments after the game, a couple of people have obviously told me this morning. You expect that, it's inter-county football, people are there to win.

“They're trying to do their best. That's the challenge you face, that's the challenge I face when I'm playing and it's something I embrace.

“It is very much out of my control what other teams are trying to do to opposition players. I just have to embrace that and try play my own game, that’s all I can do.

“I’ve learned to deal with it, a little bit. You just have to take it play by play and try get on the ball and make things happen.”

Surprisingly, the Dublin star was more animated by the suggestion he is now renowned for being one of the most naturally gifted footballers in the country. He was at pains to point out that the quality of performances he now produces as a matter of course for Dublin are down more to pure hard work than any innate natural talent.

“I don't know if you've read your man, John Kavanagh's book, (he wrote) 'there's no such thing as a natural athlete’,” said Connolly. “I mean, you have to work.

"Some people are more gifted than others, but you have to work on your game and try and tweak things here and there, and be the best that you can be. It's pure and utter hard work. You know you've got the work done, well then you'll go out and perform."

Connolly’s former Dublin team-mate, Alan Brogan, wrote recently in his newspaper column that Connolly “gets bored with the easy stuff” and is “inclined towards the extravagant, whilst sometimes overlooking simpler, more mundane duties.”

Connolly disputed the suggestion that there’s anything about the game that comes easily to him, and once again insisted his game is about hard work more than anything else.

“Sometimes it might look easy to some people, but it's hard work,” he said. “If you see the training we put in; if you see the hours we put in in the gym and on the training fields. When you go out and play in Croke Park, it's not easy!

“It's 24-25 degrees on Sunday and it was a helter-skelter game. The first half, there wasn't a whole pile in it and we kind of got going then in the second. We kicked on in the third quarter, but I don't think it's a fair comment. It might look easy for Alan sometimes, but it's hard work on my part!"

Connolly clearly prides himself on his work-ethic, but it’s easy to believe he also has a natural flair for sport that is bestowed on very few. Not only is he one of the most skillful Gaelic Footballers in the country, he is also one of the best hurlers in Dublin as he consistently proves whenever he plays the sport with his club St. Vincent’s.

He played hurling up to U-21 level for Dublin and would undoubtedly have hurled for the senior team too had he not decided to focus on Gaelic Football.

“Could have been, in a past life,” said Connolly with a shrug.

There are soccer coaches in Dublin who would also view Connolly as one that got away because he excelled at that sport too in his teenage years.

“My next door neighbour, Fran Pearce, was involved in Belvedere,” said Connolly. “I didn’t play underage, I went down at Under-14 I think to Fairview Park, did a few trials and played two seasons with them before moving to Home Farm.

“But my big love was GAA, it was never really going to be soccer, I know a lot of lads down there were focusing on getting over to England and making a career over there but that was never my focus.”

Connolly plays the game with a lot of style, but when you talk to him it’s clear he values substance above any other quality. Dublin are beating teams by playing an expansive brand of football, but he didn’t buy the suggestion he takes extra pleasure by winning in a certain way against teams with a less positive mindset.

"If you ask any footballer, they want to play man on man. That's a kind of traditional GAA, and when you were a young lad that's how you played but – let's be honest – no one plays like that anymore. I don't get extra satisfaction, but it's just something you go through. You learn.

“We played against Donegal in 2011 and we learned so much from that game. It was like a surprise for us. Now everyone is doing some sort of a hybrid or some sort of a defensive structure, and it just takes time to break it down. You just have to learn and grow and try and break it down as best you can."

Connolly might make the game look easy, but he’s adamant he never expects it to be. Despite Dublin’s dominance of Leinster in recent years he has no difficulty zoning into the ‘one game at a time’ mantra that is at the core of Jim Gavin’s philosophy.

So even though everyone outside the camp is suggesting Dublin are driven this year to win back to back All-Irelands for the first time since ‘76/’77, Connolly insists they would never consider looking that far down the road.

"Absolutely not,” he said. “It's not in the back of my mind. I know there's a lot of talk about it. Someone asked me earlier on (about being) the defending champions. We're defending nothing. We're going out to win a quarter-final and hopefully move onto a semi. That's where we're at. We’re going to attack this Sam Maguire.

“You have to focus on what's in front of you and not look into the past or look too far into the future – or else you take your eye off the ball."

Connolly doesn’t seem the type who’s likely to do that anytime soon despite all he has won. In his possession already are three All-Ireland, four National League, and nine Leinster medals, all of which his mother has had hung in a frame together.

Someone inquired as to whether there’s much room left in the frame, and Connolly smiled and said, “There are a few hooks left.”

You wouldn’t bet against him hanging more gold from them. 

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