By Cian O'Connell

Just over three and a half years ago on St Patrick's Day Ballyboden St Enda's planted a blue and white flag on the summit of the club game at Croke Park.

An AIB All Ireland Senior Football title was captured, after a decade of promise and underage work Ballyboden earned the ultimate honour.

In the intervening time, though, difficult days have been endured so Darren O'Reilly is simply delighted that Ballyboden are relevant again with another Leinster decider against Carlow's Eire Og looming.

"I think any team, unless it's lads who are used to winning two or three All-Irelands - so yeah, we did struggle, we struggled for two or three years after it, Andy Mc (McEntee) was still on for a year, we lost to Crokes in a tight second round of the championship so we had a long winter to think about it," O'Reilly reflects.

"Then a year later Anthony (Rainbow) came in and kind of steadied the ship a bit more. He got back to basics, I think that was the way he wanted to put it. He got our fitness, our conditioning levels up high again.

"That's kind of what we focused on, that first year under Anthony, we lost in a semi-final and we kind of tweaked a few things for this year and seem to have gone from strength to strength this year."

On and off the field Ballyboden remains a significant operation with O'Reilly acknowledging that brings a challenge. "I think it's 3 or 4,000 members," O'Reilly says. "It might have this kind of aura looking in from the outside of being a super club. But it definitely has a community feel.

"There's a lot of good people doing a lot of good work. In terms of numbers there's never really an issue with getting numbers out. It's facilities that you kind of have to (manage), the lack of pitches in Dublin is something that we kind of have to try to work on and that's what we've been working on definitely in the last while."

Last weekend Ballyboden celebrated its 50th year in existence with a gala dinner in the City West.

"You've probably grown over the last 20, 25 years in terms of success, we've kind of grown up around the senior Camogie team and the Ladies Football team being very successful and they were definitely the teams that you were going out supporting," O'Reilly recalls.

"In the latter years, the hurlers have won five-in-a-row. The ladies football and the Camogie team, they've definitely won a lot of county club championships in the last few years. You're growing up in an environment where winning is kind of....it's good, yeah."

Only Robbie McDaid and Michael Darragh MacAuley were involved with the Dublin senior panel during the summer which aided Boden's planning and plotting according to O'Reilly.

"Definitely, I was just saying that earlier on, it's definitely beneficial that we only had Mick this year, and Robbie who is a godsend for us, Robbie McDaid, he's our centre-back, he's a godsend because he comes back and plays any opportunity he gets without any questions asked," O'Reilly states.

"But yeah, those two just slot back in seamlessly. I can't imagine what it's like for Ballymun with six or seven lads to slot back in, you have Kilmacud who have three or four, it's definitely not easy. It's about managing the lads, particularly in the last few years when you have Dublin being so successful and the celebrations going into September and October and everything that goes with that.

"That's when you're trying to focus on Club Championship and it's definitely difficult for them."

A summer challenge draw with Eire Og is discussed with O'Reilly delighted to play in games outside of Dublin. "I always like going to play friendlies outside of Dublin," O'Reilly admits.

"You get to know Dublin teams too much. Particularly in the Leinster club it seems to be more purer football, because you're only getting one or two videos of the opposition, so the sample size is small and you're only hearing through word of mouth, from other people, what teams are like.

"Whereas in Dublin you know lads, you've gone to school with lads, you're playing against the same lads all the way up.

"You nearly know them too well and you're nearly focusing too much on the opposition in Dublin whereas when you get outside of Dublin you can focus more on yourself."

On Boden's last trip to O'Moore Park the Dublin outfit survived a real scare before eventually beating Clonmel Commercials in a dramatic AIB All Ireland Club SFC Semi-Final

"Darragh Nelson got the infamous point with the few extra steps," O'Reilly laughs. "But definitely we haven't been back here since.

"The video still pops up every so often online and he gets tagged on it. Yeah, it's good. It was a great day for the club.

"A lot of relief, I remember the scenes at the end, thousands of people spilling onto the pitch and just kind of living your childhood dream, going to play for your club in Croke Park and that's kind of what it was."

Returning to GAA headquarters next January remains the objective.