The Dublin hurler with the most appearances in 2024

By Paul Keane

Across all three competitions that Dublin competed in, nobody started more games than Paddy Smyth, the team captain who was there from the opening round of the Walsh Cup against Westmeath, just four days into January, all the way through to the late June All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork.

Conor Donohoe, to his credit, matched Smyth's record of starting 14 of Dublin's 15 competitive games this year but nobody lined out in them all.

Smyth's virtual ever presence, and the captaincy, points to an increased responsibility within the group and also gives him a strong platform to reflect on a year of highs, lows and ultimately, according to the Clontarf defender, progress.

"I think it was a step forward, a step further of progress, just getting to a Leinster final," said Smyth at the launch of Dublin GAA's Staycity Aparthotels sponsored alternate jersey for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

"The final performance wasn't what we wanted but it was an experience, a new experience, for a lot of the younger lads."

The result in that game propelled Dublin through to an All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork, down in Thurles. Dublin finished that game strongly, outscoring Cork by 0-7 to 0-3 in the closing quarter hour or so and losing by just five points. It was the only game of the whole year that a free wheeling Cork side didn't manage to register a goal in.

There was plenty then for Dublin to be positive about but defeat still hurt and Smyth acknowledged a sense of regret afterwards given the 16 wides tallied by the team.

"Yeah, definitely there would be regrets," he said. "We probably should have been a couple of points closer before that surge at the end which would have helped us a bit. There were a couple of frees and a couple of other wides that on another day might have gone over for us.

"You saw what Cork did beforehand and after playing us, in terms of their performances. To know that we had a chance to stop them...but look, you could look back on every little thing in that game."

Almost five months on, Smyth has long since parked his frustrations with the outcome of that game and repackaged it as potential. He sees a lot of it in this Dublin group and is upbeat about what they can deliver under new manager Niall O Ceallachain. For Smyth himself it will be a ninth consecutive season in blue.

"It's exciting," he said of working under the man who has managed Na Fianna to the last two Go-Ahead Dublin SHC titles. "Niall has a good reputation in Dublin hurling with Na Fianna. He has a good backroom team behind him and over the next couple of months we'll be getting to know him and how they all work, and him and the backroom will be getting to know us."

Smyth was part of the Dublin minor team that won the Leinster championship back in 2016. When he looks around the Dublin senior dressing-room now, he sees a lot of familiar faces. Daire Gray, Ronan Hayes, Conor Burke, Donal Burke, Sean Currie and Colin Currie all featured in that talented minor group which ended up losing an All-Ireland semi-final to Limerick.

"My age group, the 1998 born lads, we'd have a large core in the group," said Smyth. "There'd be 10 or 12 of us involved."

Around that established core is a number of more experienced players and several who are younger and who have just come onto the panel. Smyth noted that, in some cases, their development was accelerated given the high turnover of players in the last couple of seasons.

Again, he is viewing this as a positive in that a group of young players now have big game experience that they mightn't ordinarily have been exposed to quite so early.

"I think the turnover in the panel in the last two years has been too high," said Smyth, an accountant by trade. "We just want a bit of consistency on that and hopefully the core of the panel stays together from last season.

"Obviously there'd be a lot of reasons (for the turnover). Coming out of Covid, lads were going travelling. A couple of other lads were coming to the end of their time in terms of their careers and it all just came together in that year or two. Hopefully now with the younger lads who have come through over the last two years, that experience maybe came a year or two early but will stand to them."