By John Harrington

A proper Irish mammy would take one look at Bernard Brogan right now and tell him he's badly in need of a good feed.

The six-time All-Ireland winner looks as lean as a greyhound at the moment and so he should because he currently weighs more than half a stone less than he normally would.

He hardly looked like someone who needed to lose weight, but Brogan is determined to do whatever is required to extract the last few precious drops out of his inter-county career before he hangs up his boots.

And by being lighter on his feet he believes he’s putting less pressure on the cruciate ligament that was reconstructed last year and is also better equipped to be a super-sub this summer for Dublin.

“For now it’s about how can I add value for 10 minutes if I get a chance so I need to be super fit,” said Brogan today at SuperValu’s All-Ireland SFC launch.

“I need to have endurance so that at the end of a game what do you want to do? Do you want to be able to take your chances really well when you get them and do you want to be able to get by people and burn people who may be tired markers? Look what Kevin Mac has done for Dublin over the years.

“Massive energy and fitness to burn lads and pace to burn lads in games and get by them to create an opportunity, so I’m looking at that opportunity, that 10 or 15 minutes that I may hopefully get at some stage, how can I be the best that I can be for that stage?

“So actually, last year if I was playing a game, you’d carb load, you build up and I’d be kind of 86KG coming into it in good nick, 100% carb loaded going into a match.

“Now, I’m about 82KG so about 4KG lighter, carbed up ready and fit and ready to go for a match. So that just means I have four less bags of sugar to carry around with me than when

“I want to be super sharp then on the strikes, so I’m just practising kicking on the run, kicking on the run making sure I’m striking it really well so that I am building myself to be a 15/20 minute man and then if I do that well, if I get an opportunity to play, great.

“But I am trying to build so that i can add value for that one incident do you know what I mean? I’m not trying to build to be a 70-minute man because that’s not what I am going to be.

“So, just a different way of looking at things, just trying to get myself into the role that potentially I would be able to offer instead of saying I am going to carb load or I’m going to time myself in a game to have the energy for 50 minutes to peak.

“My diet and everything, for 20 minutes I’m going to burn 20 minutes worth of energy in my body for a game.

“All those little things that might just make me be good if I get that chance. That’s what I am telling Jim (Gavin) anyway so I hope he’s listening.”

Brogan suffered a serious injury last year, is 35 years of age, has a young family, and a growing portfolio of businesses off the field so he had any amount of good excuses to retire from the inter-county game after last year’s All-Ireland win over Tyrone.

So what exactly does he still have left to prove to himself? Why is he still pushing his body to the limit even though there’s no guarantee he’ll even play a minute of Championship football this year?

“It's just Dublin GAA, being a fan, and loving every bit of it,” explains Brogan. “The energy you get when you burst onto the pitch or when you're even involved in Croke Park. The atmosphere around it.

“My family is bred in it obviously with my dad, and it's all I know and I love it.

“I've always said that I'll stay around until I feel like I can't add any more value or I'm told I can't add any more value. I never believed that the right way to go was, 'Now is a good time, I'm actually at the top of the hill, I should ride out into the sunset'.

“I would prefer to be carried out on my shield having given everything and be able to say, 'You know what, thanks a million, that's my shift done'.

“That's what I'm doing and I believe I can still add value and that's why I'm here. I sat with Jim and he believes there's a potential role there so that's good enough for me. All I want to do is play for Dublin and be involved, it's all I've ever wanted to do.

“It's no different because I've done it so many times. The hunger doesn't die, you know.”

He made that much very clear last year when ruptured a cruciate ligament in February yet still somehow made a return to playing at the highest level in Dublin’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final round-robin match against Roscommon the following August.

Before undergoing surgery he studied the recovery times of professional athletes who had suffered similar injuries, such as former All-Black Dan Carter, and set his mind on making a full comeback as quickly as he possibly could.

It’s a testament to just how much he dedicated himself to that goal that as far as he’s aware he has set a new record for a full return to play at a high level of sport after a ruptured cruciate.

“For anyone I know I did, yeah,” said Brogan. “To play a competitive game. It was five and a half months form the Roscommon game.

“People say it was silly but, do you know what, I’ve nothing to lose if I go out and then it happens.

“I did everything right, did everything I could. Minded the diet, minded the training, did a lot of bike work, I nearly worked on it every day but it was a tough slog. Cruciate is a tough one.”

With the benefit of hindsight he believes his knee was only operating at 90% when he returned to the Dublin panel last year.

Now he’s convinced he’s performing at full throttle again and is itching to be given the opportunity to prove that in a Championship match this summer.

“I took the whole winter off, I met Jim in early November and we had a good honest chat. He portrayed that he felt I could still add something. I said I felt I could add something to the group. And then I went after it.

“I stayed off the grass but I was in the gym most mornings in December. I took an easy Christmas and then came in January and trained really hard all the way with the lads. I would've liked a little bit more game-time in the National League but the way it went it was hugely competitive and we didn't have any freebies.

“Jim had to put the best team out every time. That knocked me back a little bit, I would have loved more time.

“But now I'm back, training away and pushing. I was chatting to Jim this morning and I was saying I want in for the next day, I want to be on the 26. We're going to have football on Sunday and we're training tonight.

“He says he'll give me the opportunity and that's all you can ask. He says if he feels that I'm in the pecking order then I'm in. It's up to me to prove it.

“Sport is amazing, that one opportunity or one ten minutes of good play as a forward and you've changed people's mindsets. So that's what I'm going to do.”

You wouldn’t doubt him.