'He's a different player' - The late developer that has provided Dublin's midfield solution
A CROKE PARK press box conversation midway through the second half of Dublin's win over Cork last Saturday, when the Dubs were a point down and taking on water.
'Which of the golden era performers would you take back, if you could have just one? Which of Dublin's former stars would make the most difference if slotted back into this current, stuttering, side?'
Jack McCaffrey's jet heels from wing-back or James McCarthy's bulldozing power and surgeon's touch around the middle would certainly help. As would Michael Fitzsimons' defensive miserliness or Paul Mannion's rapier instincts closer to goal at the opposite end.
All four of them retired after last year's championship while Dean Rock walked away 12 months earlier. The options are endless, right back to talisman performers like Paul Flynn, Bernard Brogan or Michael Darragh Macauley, who operated as recently as 2019.
The answer everyone settled on? Brian Fenton. On the basis that the midfielder of his generation was so good, and so impactful, in such a central position, that he could immediately transform a team's fortunes. This Sunday is the one year anniversary of Fenton's last game for Dublin, alongside McCarthy at midfield, when they lost to Galway in the 2024 All-Ireland quarter-finals.
But wait! There's a strong final 15 minutes from Dublin against Cork and ultimately a three-point win which wouldn't have been possible without the interventions of Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne, Fenton's replacement. Paddy Small was named man-of-the-match afterwards but O Cofaigh Byrne should have been.
He's not the new Fenton, as Flynn pointed out on The Saturday Game that evening.
'He's a different player,' said Flynn.
Cork's Colm O'Callaghan and Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne of Dublin in action last Saturday. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
But he's making a good effort all the same at plugging the gaping hole left by, perhaps, the game's greatest ever midfielder.
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It's already a different game too, from when Fenton played, with a strong emphasis on ball-winning ability at midfield this year, the one area where Ó Cofaigh Byrne may even trump the Raheny great.
Six-foot-seven inch Cuala powerhouse Ó Cofaigh Byrne tortured Cork with his aerial ability. And it was the 25-year-old that won the free which created the opening for Brian Howard's goal.
'We just need him to win primary possession and lay it off, and that's what he's doing, and he's doing it better than anybody else in the country,' said Flynn.
One analysis piece produced on Ó Cofaigh Byrne's impact prior to Dublin's fourth game of this year's championship, against Armagh, showed he had won primary possession and come away with the ball from 50 percent of the aerial contests he'd been involved in.
That lord-of-the-skies ability helped propel Cuala to an All-Ireland club SFC title win that last January that nobody saw coming.
Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne celebrating Cuala's All-Ireland club final win. Bryan Keane / INPHO Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
And it is the sort of form which could very soon have people picking someone other than Fenton when considering which ex-Dublin star they'd like to pluck from retirement.
Fenton came late to the Dublin party, in 2015, with no great underage career to speak of, complimenting the skills of MacAuley, the 2013 Footballer of the Year, at the time. Prior to that, Ciaran Whelan had stoked the fires in the Dublin engine room.
Ó Cofaigh Byrne has had to bide his time too but now looks set to be the county's latest midfield totem. The son of TV presenter Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh made his Dublin senior debut as a sub in the 2019 Super 8s game against Tyrone.
But a combination of hamstring and groin problems in 2020 and 2022, allied to the enduring excellence of Fenton and McCarthy, restricted him to just four more championship appearances, and only two starts, across the next five seasons. For three of those championship campaigns – 2020, 2022 and 2023 – O Cofaigh Byrne didn't feature at all.
It wasn't until Fenton and McCarthy exited the stage that opportunity suddenly came knocking for him.
'It is an opportunity, definitely,' said Ó Cofaigh Byrne last January. 'But they are 100 percent tough boots to fill, James and Brian's.'
After returning late to Dublin duty following the club success, Ó Cofaigh Byrne has started the last seven games, and all five in the championship.
The standard is about to jump significantly with he and Ciaran Kilkenny set to go up against Tyrone's 2021 All-Ireland winning midfield pairing this Saturday evening; Brian Kennedy and Conn Kilpatrick.
Tyrone's Brian Kennedy with Dara McVeety and Cormac O'Reilly of Cavan. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
The expectation is that Ó Cofaigh Byrne will go head to head with Kennedy, who is also six-foot-seven.
Former Tyrone midfielder Sean Cavanagh met Kennedy at a game in Moy recently and found himself looking up to the 2021 All-Star when speaking to him.
'Ó Cofaigh Byrne is a good player, don't get me wrong, but I think if you stand beside Brian Kennedy, you'll realise that he'll not be overawed by the size of anyone,' said Cavanagh. 'Unless they've Shaquille O'Neal playing for Dublin on Saturday night, I don't think it's going to annoy him!'
Dublin great Barney Rock summarised the modern game, as in football under the new rules, as 'all about the break around the midfield'. He has been impressed so far by trainee solicitor Ó Cofaigh Byrne's impressive numbers around clean fetches and breaking ball. But there is a but.
'Ó Cofaigh Byrne now is going to be meeting somebody equally as tall as him from here on in,' noted Rock.
Fenton always rose to that challenge and Ó Cofaigh Byrne has suggested so far that he can too.
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