By John Harrington

Brian Howard has been at the heart of Dublin’s run to Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC against Kerry, both literally and figuratively.

A versatile footballer who has previously played as a forward and midfielder for Dublin, this year he has anchored their defence at centre-back and produced a series of strong displays.

The Raheny clubman looks like a revitalised figure, which might have something to do with the fact he spent five months travelling around South East Asia before and after Christmas last year.

A member of the Dublin panel since 2017, Howard had gotten to the point of his inter-county career where he felt he’d benefit from a circuit-breaker and the opportunity to see some of the world.

“I had a sit down with Dessie,” says Howard of his decision to go travelling.

“There is more to life than football and you can sort of get blinded by that a bit. It was something I had always wanted to do, thankfully I have played with Dublin since development squads at under-13 so I haven’t had an opportunity to go away.

“The way my career off the field and on the field has gone, it was fairly intense. But I got an opportunity to go away and I thought it was the right time.

"Huge risk to take but I enjoyed it. The hunger never left but I’m hungrier more than ever now. It was a risk but management said, ‘Look, be under no illusion, when you come back in you are not going to be handed anything just off reputation.’

“It wasn’t an easy ride but, yeah, yeah, it was a grand conversation.”

Howard did his utmost to ensure his time away wouldn’t dull his edge too much.

He returned home for Christmas for a couple of weeks and did some sessions with the Dublin panel, and while he was away he took care to keep himself in as good a physical condition as he possibly could.

“When you are leaving the sunshine of the Bali beaches to come back to playing winter football around Christmas, it’s sort of a wake-up call,” says Howard.

“When you get back in you just want to put your best foot forward and you sort of owe it to the lads as well to come back in decent shape, if I came back out of shape or sort of unfit it would have been disrespectful to the lads. I came back in and committed 100 per cent.

"I was running myself and using gyms over there. Gym and running sessions. When you have been so involved in a high performance setup then you don’t want to be out of shape.

“In your downtime, you don’t really have a downtime, you are always wanting to do runs or your own gym sessions.”

He’s feeling physically and mentally refreshed this season and his appetite for football has never been keener.

He won four All-Ireland medals in his first four seasons as an inter-county footballer and so the relatively fallow period of not reaching a final for two consecutive seasons has lit a fire in his belly to get back to the top again.

“You learn more from a loss than a win and we’ve had a look at ourselves over the last two years and where we fell down,” says Howard.

“Both games were touch and go and it was one kick of a ball either way in both games. So there wasn’t too much we were doing wrong, it was just the luck wasn’t on our side on the day.

“We’ve built ourselves up now and are in position where we set our stall our early doors at the start of the year to be back in this position and I know Kerry would be the same.

"We’ve learned, we’ve developed. There’s lads that got runs and sort of got their debuts over the last two years and at the start of this year so we’re in a good position and they’d be the same.”

The return of Stephen Cluxton, Paul Mannion, and Jack McCaffrey to the panel this year speaks volumes for Dublin’s determination to reassert themselves as the top dogs of Gaelic football in 2023.

Cluxton’s return has arguably been the most influential comeback, and the one that surprised Howard the most.

“I remember I was sitting in this room in Parnell Park and he just casually walks in the door,” he says.

“I was waiting for everyone to have a reaction because I wasn’t really aware, and nobody else was aware, really. He walked in and I was looking to see what people were thinking, and he just walked in and sat down and started talking.

“Just the standards he asks of himself is infectious to other players. He always makes sure he’s in tip top shape, I think he’s 60-odd at this stage but the shape he’s in now and the way he goes about his business is admirable.

“When he comes in you sort of just rope in behind him, and he doesn't come back in thinking he’s the way he left off as captain, there’s nothing like that. He’s come in and fitted right back in.”

Howard’s maturity as a footballer has been reflected in how well he’s organised the Dublin defence this year, but the biggest test of all comes on Sunday.

At times it will be his responsibility to double up on David Clifford when the Kerry star attempts his signature move of winning the ball on the right, dropping his shoulder, and moving towards the centre of the pitch before kicking left-footed.

It’s one thing knowing what Clifford might do, it’s another thing entirely stopping him, and Howard admits it’s likely to be the biggest challenge of Sunday’s Final.

“Oh yeah, you can’t say anything other than he’s outstanding,” says Howard of Clifford. “He’s the most in-form player in the country.

“He’s outstanding and he’s obviously someone that we have to look out for the next day but if you have David Clifford and you put all your attention on David Clifford, the likes of his brother, Paudie, then there’s the likes of Sean O’Shea, Dara Moynihan there, they’re top class forwards so it’s not a one-man army up there and it’d be naive to say, ‘Just shut down Clifford and you shut down Kerry’.

“It’s not like that at all. He’s obviously an amazing player, one of the best footballers to ever play the game at such a young age but yeah, obviously you have to mark him but, the other day, McKaigue didn’t do a whole lot wrong and he’s still able to clip a few points.

“He’s just amazing. You sort of just have to admire him but we don’t have too bad forwards either so it’ll be interesting from a neutral’s point of view the forwards that are going to be on show from both teams.

“All over the pitch, the 15 players on both teams and the subs, I think it’s going to be a great spectacle.”