When Dessie Hutchinson helped Waterford FC to fourth spot in the 2018 League of Ireland, boss Alan Reynolds begged him to stick around.
Hutchinson was just back from five years at Brighton and Reynolds figured he could build a team around the homegrown hero.
He thought he’d got his man too until Hutchinson’s hurling club Ballygunner went and completed a five-in-a-row of county titles.
Current Ireland U-21 assistant manager Reynolds told MirrorSport: “When he came back from Brighton that year we had him with Waterford and we were pushing hard for a European spot which we achieved and he played a good bit in that run.
“I begged him to stay for the following year and he said, ‘Look, I’m thinking about it and I’m swinging towards it’ but then Ballygunner were playing in the county final around the same time and there was no sign of him for a couple of days.
“He was off celebrating with his brothers and the club no doubt. I really thought I had him over the line but he came back to me then saying he was taking a holiday and could he talk to me after it.
“He came back and said he wanted to have a good go at the hurling. He said he’d made up his mind and that was what he wanted.”
Hutchinson ended up playing Gaelic football for Waterford in 2019 and only realised his ambition of becoming a Deise hurler this year. Now he’s literally living his dream and on the brink of an All-Ireland final.
Reynolds admits he actually tried a second time to throw a spanner in the works and to keep the midfielder playing soccer with Waterford FC but to no avail.
He said: “About three or four months after he left us, I asked would he do me a favour and come in and just train for a while, see if he got the bug for it again. So he did, he came in for a few days and eventually I said to him, ‘So what do you think, Dessie? Any joy?’ He said, ‘No, I just want the hurling’.
“He just wanted to play with his family, his club, his parish, his county. I tried everything to keep him and his heart just wasn’t in it. What more could I do?”
The thing is, Reynolds gets it. As much as he’s been a central part of Dundalk’s latest Europa League odyssey as the club’s coach, the former Waterford, Cork City and Shamrock Rovers midfielder also dabbled in GAA himself.
When John ‘Jackson’ Kiely’s Waterford won an All-Ireland junior football title against the head in 1999, beating a fancied Meath team by a point, Tramore man Reynolds was on the team.
He said: “That’s why I could relate to exactly what he was feeling, that pull of the GAA and of parish and of home. I understood totally where he was coming from. Soccer was always my thing but I enjoyed the GAA too and I won an All-Ireland with Waterford so I could 100% see why it meant so much to him.
“I’m from Tramore and our teams would always have been fairly tight but they’re probably even closer in Ballygunner, they’ve a real passion for the hurling there and I got that and understood it.”
Hutchinson’s heart may not have been in top level soccer but he has brought plenty back from the pro game.
Team-mate Stephen Bennett said: “The four or five years training professionally definitely helped him. I just think his first five steps are brilliant. You’d love to take that quality off him, he’s really good. We need to get better at actually using him, and all our other forwards.”
