As Brendan McManamon knows only too well, timing is everything in football.
A Dublin senior footballer in the 2000s when they had a stranglehold on Leinster but couldn’t figure Kerry or Tyrone out, he endured three leg breaks between 2009 and ‘11 that stunted his progress up the pecking order.
Though he was resilient enough to earn recalls from then manager Pat Gilroy, the third setback, as he closed in on 30 and Dublin finally broke their All-Ireland duck with his younger brother Kevin starring, effectively finished him as an inter-county footballer.
