Dublin's Niall Scully embracing 'exciting' substitute role

Scully has made his three championship appearances so far this summer as a substitute

Ever since his breakthrough season in 2017, Niall Scully has been one of the mainstays on the Dublin starting team.

However, the Templeogue Synge Street club man has been forced into a different role this season. After Dessie Farrell assessed his options throughout the National League campaign, Scully started on the bench in each of the three Leinster Championship ties.

It has been a new experience for him, but he is relishing the role.

"I think for me it's something new, something exciting," explained the 2020 All-Star.

"It's probably not a position I've faced before but it gives me something to look forward to every time I'm stepping out into training. But definitely it kind of excites me more than it daunts me."

Lorcan O'Dell has seized his opportunity this year. And although Scully is missing out on a starting berth, he is pleased for the player he has replaced as a second-half substitute in the games against Meath and Kildare.

"I'd be the first one to put my hand up, I'm absolutely delighted for him and I think he's done extremely well over the last two games," Scully stated.

"For me, all I can do is go to training and put my hand up and put my best foot forward. I wouldn't be wishing that it's me or him or anything like that.

"It's always about the team performance and how we can benefit the team the most. I suppose if it's in the starting 15 or if it's outside the starting 15, coming off the bench, whatever the case may be, it's just a big thing for me to benefit the team and try to introduce that.

"You're always going to need that and that's down to an individual basis and understanding that and acknowledging it. Intercounty football now is a 35 or 40-man game. You need the competitiveness in the internal games and in every training session."

The Dubs are hoping to regain the Sam Maguire Cup

Parking the disappointment of the National League

Dublin endured an underwhelming start to 2022, suffering relegation from Division 1.

However, they have appeared to time their run correctly, as they hit form during the Leinster Championship.

"When you look back at it, the performances just weren't good enough and the consistency across all the quarters wasn't great," Scully reflected on the springtime.

"We always have and had the quality in the team. That's just about trying to bring that up to the top of the surface and to get us all back on the same wave level.

"The biggest thing was it was obviously disappointing but I think just the way we performed was more disappointing than how it ended up. We got a lot of time then for reflection that kind of made us humble. We probably weren't as good as we thought we were maybe and over the last few weeks we had to look at that.

"I think it's looking back at the performances as well and trying to understand, trying to understand what had went wrong on the pitch and obviously what the internal motivation is for the individual as well."

Scully and Dublin face Cork in Saturday's All-Ireland quarter-final

And for Scully, who came straight into a winning dressing room when breaking into the Dublin senior panel, it was a new experience.

"In fairness it was fairly strange but like I said, for the National League we'd be moreso focusing on performances than results and that's the way we do it," he said.

"It was only two or three points in it in a few of the games and maybe on different days of the week they would have went our way but they didn't."

Watch Clare vs Derry and Dublin vs Cork live in the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals live on Sky Sports Arena from 3:15pm Saturday.