By John Harrington

Former Mayo star Alan Dillon is still getting used to his new status of ‘former inter-county footballer’.

The Ballintubber club-man made 134 appearances for the Westerners over the course of 15 seasons so most of his adult life has revolved around being a Mayo footballer.

Now he’s on the outside looking in like every other Mayo supporter, and he admits it’s a strange sensation.

“I suppose it is,” said Dillon at today’s launch in Croke Park of the first ever GAA Player Conference.

“When you've been involved in something for so long, it takes a while to just step outside of that bubble.

“But so far so good, the weather has been poor so I'm delighted I haven't been on the field and that kind of stuff!

“We're looking forward to club action over the next few weeks, that'll focus the mind.

“I suppose you have your down days and your up days and that's part of life.

“Once you make that decision and you're happy with it, you just have to go with it. I had the longevity of the last number of years playing for Mayo.

“It's time to pass on that baton to the younger group so they can instil the same pride and commitment to wearing the red and green.”

Dillon captained Mayo to the 2011 Connacht Championship and over the course of his career won eight provincial medals and scored a total of 3-225.

He was also on the losing side though in six All-Ireland Finals, and admits that failure to win the ultimate honour will always be a source of disappointment.

“You have to take the pros and cons,” he said. “While experiencing so much within them years, there is that regret that we didn't pull one off. But the last three or four years, we've come agonisingly close.

“Again, came up against a superior Dublin team who will be talked about for the next decades to come because of what they've achieved.

“Who knows where they can go from here but yeah very proud of representing the county. Very proud of what we've achieved. Even the five-in-a-row in Connacht that time was a big achievement.

“There is satisfaction that we changed the landscape probably of Mayo football in terms of what we were perceived at when I began my career versus where we actually are now.

“Year in, year out, making six or seven (All-Ireland) semi-finals in a row, competing in All-Ireland finals and nearly pulling it off but not yet having that finishing touch.”

He might have lost six All-Ireland Finals, but it’s the semi-final replay defeat to Kerry in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick in 2014 that haunts him more than any other loss.

“Yeah, that was it definitely,” he said. “Longford (2006) was very low as well, but, definitely, 2014.

“We went back to Westport after the Kerry replay and watched Donegal beat Dublin that day.

“That was really, really, really a low-point. We saw the opportunity and all of a sudden it just passed.

“The first day in 2014 when we played Kerry we were five points up and down a man.

“Then O'Donoghue got that goal. I knew that day, 'oh my God', it was going to be a really big one to beat them in Limerick.

“While we got into injury-time, the collisions, Robert Hennelly's shot near the end, there were so many things (that went against us).

“That was definitely one of the lows, yeah.”

Dillon is a positive guy by nature so don’t get the impression he wallows in regret when he looks back over his career.

Few footballers have played in as many big games in Croke Park as he has, and the buzz from winning matches like the 2006 and 2012 All-Ireland semi-finals against Dublin will always be treasured memories.

“Yeah in terms of real atmosphere and passion and in terms of elation in beating them, they were huge highs,” he said.

“The '04 semi-final against Tyrone was a huge high. From 2011 when Horan took over, we actually beat the All-Ireland champions three years in a row which was huge psychological effort for the lads just to take out the All-Ireland champions.

“They were some big highs there as well like. There's not one real highlight, it was just coming to Croke Park and giving your all.

“Coming off the pitch, the sense of satisfaction was brilliant.”

He’d love nothing more than to watch his former team-mates finally get over the line and win the Sam Maguire Cup in 2018.

And he believes if this generation of Mayo footballers are to do it, then it probably has to be this year.

“It will be one of those years that you just hope that they can actually muster that bit of extra luck that has been agonisingly missing the last two years,” he said.

“It’s a huge year for this group of lads because not only potentially you might see a drop off after that, they're in a position now they can line themselves up to have a right rattle off it.”