By John Harrington

When Dean Rock stands over a free for Dublin in Sunday’s Leinster Final, he’ll be exactly where he wants to be.

For him the pressure of that moment is something to be embraced, not feared.

Countless hours of graft have been spent honing his craft, and when he sails the ball between the posts in Croke Park it all becomes worthwhile.

"I go through my own pattern twice a week away from the group. I'd kick over 100 balls by myself,” says Rock. “To be the best, you have to keep practicing, put in the hours of training.

"For me, I enjoy getting the bag of 10 or 12 balls and going out to the local field and kicking. It's an aspect of my game that I pride myself on. I have a responsibility to the team, that when I get a free, to stick it over the bar. If I'm not doing the practice, I'm not able to do that for the team.

"I take responsibility for that, and I enjoy going out practicing and doing it on the game day as well.”

He is obsessive about improving his free-taking and is always looking for an extra edge. One of his most influential role-models has been former England fly-half Johnny Wilkinson.

"When I was younger, he would have been one of my sporting idols,” says Rock. “I would have played a lot of rugby growing up, would have been a goal-kicker as well, so I'd have based a lot of my training on him.

"Certainly, you have to be very obsessive about it because, at the end of the day, you have a huge responsibility to the team that, if it’s tight, you have to stick the ball over the bar. I'm always trying to improve, get better and get those extra inches on it. Throughout the years, you grow and grow in confidence in terms of kicking frees on big days.

"At this moment in time, I'm extremely confident as a player and a footballer. The confidence comes from knowing that you've performed a kick 100 times in the last two or three weeks and that you're going to be able to put it over the bar. That's where I get my confidence.

"I have my own routines. In terms of free-kicks, I'd look back on games at frees that I might have missed, frees that I scored. Look at what worked and what didn't work in different situations. I have my own little things that I use myself when I'm kicking frees.

“It is certainly a mind-set thing because you kind of shift from a team sport into an individual sport as such when you're kicking frees, so it's certainly mind-set.”

Rock’s free-taking is invaluable to Dublin, but he brings so much more to the table than just dead-ball reliability. He has the heft to be an effective target-man, the vision to bring others into the play, and is a clinical finisher off either foot.

He was the only Dublin player to feature in every single competitive match they played last year, which tells you all you need to know about just how highly Jim Gavin rates him.

“Yeah look the last couple of years I've been injury free, which has been great for me to be able to train all the time and to play games," says Rock. "As I said I'm just really enjoying my football now, I'm 26 and having the time of my life playing with a great group who are best friends, a real driven group, so it's absolutely brilliant.

“I'm confident in my own ability and I look forward to every training session and every game, it's the opportunity to go out and express yourself and perform.”

It’s no mean feat to be an automatic starter in this Dublin attack. Top quality players like Paul Mannion, Paddy Andrews, Eoghan O’Gara, Cormac Costello, and Con O’Callaghan didn’t make the cut for the Leinster Semi-Final, so the depth of talent in the panel is staggering.

It means you just can’t afford to have an off-day if you want to keep that jersey, but dealing with pressure is what Rock does best.

“I'm sure everybody within the squad feels the pressure,” he says. “Growing up, there's always been competition for places in the Dublin minors, 21s, seniors.

“It's the norm for me, it's the norm for every player in the squad to have that pressure on your back.

“If you're not going to perform, someone else is going to step in for you so I suppose that brings the best out of everybody and raises the level of competition within the squad, so it's a brilliant position to be in.”