Players make great teams but great teams also make players. Niall Scully staked his claim for a Dublin place four years ago now after graduating best in class during the O'Byrne Cup blooding of new talent at the start of 2017 when the All-Ireland champions were away on a winter holiday.
On Wednesday he reflected on what happened next: rapid elevation to Jim Gavin's panel and first team, which has led to four successive All-Ireland football medals, the most recent under his old underage manager Dessie Farrell, an achievement that until three years ago had been reserved for members of just three teams in history.
“Playing in that O’Byrne Cup, probably mentally I knew – not knew it was my last opportunity – but knew it was time to give it a good crack and do my best to get on the panel. That was the main focus, just get on the panel – don’t mind getting on starting teams or playing in All-Ireland finals.”
He was unusual in that his generation had already started to motor. Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion started so young and achieved so much that they have re-prioritised life and dropped out of intercounty. Scully brings the hunger of the player who for a while was face-to-face with the prospect of not making it.
Unsurprisingly, thoughts of similarly pulling stumps early haven’t occurred to him.
“After finishing minor and finishing under-21, it probably took me three or four years to get on the panel,” said Scully at an event to launch a new virtual AIG health and wellness portal. “Along with getting dropped two or three times with that so it probably helps where I am mentally in the game now and where I will be over the next two or three years. I have no intentions of walking away anytime soon.”
Part of the impetus behind the career resurrection was reinvention. A conventional attacker at underage, he graduated to the seniors as one of those wing forwards – indispensable in the modern game – who unrelentingly cover acres of ground and whose athleticism and mobility take them into all the right areas.
Last December’s All-Ireland was a case in point. James McCarthy’s gliding run set up Dean Rock for the earliest goal in the history of finals but halfway through he played a one-two with Scully. It didn’t jump out at the time but was a perfect illustration of how integral a cog he’s become.
Then he did it again, slipping in behind the Mayo defence to tee up the perfect service for Con O’Callaghan to smash into the net. He acknowledges the paradigm shift.
“In comparison to when I was growing up and playing club football, I probably would have been more offensive than I am but again I suppose in 2017 I played a particular style and a particular position. And the way I played and what I done worked well and I suppose it kept me in the team. So again, look, I would have moved away from certain aspects but I would have developed different aspects of my game that I probably wouldn’t have had before which has kept me in the squad and on the panel and in teams to date.”
If 2020 brought all the strangeness of empty stadiums and cheerless terracing, it also brought a first All Star to go with the fourth All-Ireland, a deserved accolade but not a lifetime pursuit.
“Yeah, it was probably nothing I ever chased or dreamt about growing up as a kid, or something I would have thought about while I was playing. It’s one of those achievements I think I’ll probably look back on more so.”
Unusually among players, Scully is not as keen on the new panacea of the split season.
“I’m not sure whether a split season is the way best going forward. At this stage we’re all just looking to play games. As soon as club and county football gets back, whichever way they bring it back, it’s going to work this year.
“Is a three- or four-month break for club players what they are looking for? That would be my concern on it.”
