GOING back to when Rory O’Carroll first shocked the system by heading off mid-flow, there have been opt-outs in Dublin the same as in every other county.
Last season it was, for the second time, Jack McCaffrey. For whatever comes of this year, Paul Mannion has taken his leave.
They have not been immune to the national trend, but each time it happens, the question comes up: why would anyone walk away from what Dublin are achieving?
It’s certainly not on the radar of Niall Scully. He was on the same minor side as McCaffrey and Mannion, but it took him until 2017 to establish himself as a Dublin regular.
The previous two summers he’d spent in America, playing his football for John McBride’s in Chicago having failed to make Jim Gavin’s squad.
Scully is the prototype modern footballer. Fast, energetic, and with a brain and awareness that pushes him into the category of great recent wing-forwards like Paul Galvin or Donnchadh Walsh.
That ability to pop up in an area that’s not his own, do something critical but not always flashy, and then go back and do it all over again is the stamp that has earned him a first Allstar.
Now that he’s firmly fixed in the number 10 jersey, he has no notion of letting it go.
“After finishing minor and finishing under-21, it probably took me three or four years to get on the panel. Along with getting dropped two or three times with that, so it probably helps to 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. We’re here to win All-Irelands and we’re here to enjoy the company of the Dublin players and that’s the main thing.
“I suppose it’s a big part of my life now and hopefully it will remain to be over the next three, four years with a bit of luck.”
Mannion’s break coincides with the retirements of Michael Darragh Macauley and Paddy Andrews.
The idea of the changing room might not exist outside of WhatsApp groups and Zoom right now, but when normality does resume, the dynamic of Dublin’s squad will have changed.
“Definitely three massive presences in the dressing-room between Paul, Paddy and Michael Darragh,” says Scully.
“Definitely in and around the squad and in and around the dressing-room it will be felt. Again, there's a lot of characters within the squad and a lot of characters within the team.
“It will be something that you'd be missing for a week or so and then you'd forget about it and kind of move on.”
If that sounds blunt, it’s because it is a ruthless environment.
A new way of doing things was discovered last year under Dessie Farrell. He passed all his tests, though the only one that really taxed him was the All-Ireland final with Mayo.
Any big differences between Farrell and Jim Gavin?
“No, not really to be honest. Their footballing philosophies and that sort of stuff, their footballing styles, are very similar. “There's very little change between both of them. Dessie is more hands on in the drills and likes to be more involved than maybe Jim would have been.”
