Jonny Cooper

Cooper won an All-Ireland "A" Hurling medal while playing with Dublin Colleges in 2006 and the Leinster Minor Hurling Championship the year after.[1] He knew future Dublin teammate Stephen Cluxton as a teacher at his school.[1]

Jim Gavin named Cooper as captain of the 2010 Dublin under-21 football team when he was manager.[4]

In early 2011, Cooper required surgery on a shoulder but kept playing in the hope that Pat Gilroy would call him into his Dublin squad. When this did not occur, Cooper underwent surgery in March that year.[1]

Some games for Dublin followed in 2012, under Gilroy's management.[1] But not many.[1] Gilroy later dropped Cooper from the Dublin team.[4] His physique and his intelligence were flaws to his progress.[1]

His former under-21 mentors Declan Darcy and Jim Gavin were puzzled why Cooper was not playing for Dublin.[1] Darcy even called Cooper for the first time in about a year to enquire why Cooper was not playing more games.[1] "They were very good", Copper later said. "I think they came to me first".[1] The morning after he watched the Dublin team win the 2011 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, Cooper went training "because I knew the 30-odd guys that [sic] were my direct competitors weren't going to be training and I was trying to get the edge there, in my own small way".[1]

Cooper played some games in the 2012 National Football League, but only 20 championship minutes in the Leinster Senior Football Championship quarter-final win over Louth.[1] For the 2012 Leinster SFC final, Cooper was given the number 33 jersey; he kept it with his other jerseys and would use it to motivate himself to become a better player.[1]

Cooper was part of the Dublin team that defeated Tyrone by 0–18 to 0–17 to win the 2013 National Football League, with Gavin having by then been appointed manager.[5][6][7][8] He was then part of the Dublin team that beat Mayo by 2–12 to 1–14 in the 2013 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. In 2014, Cooper won both the 2014 National Football League and the 2014 Leinster Senior Football Championship with Dublin, before an infamous semi-final defeat to Donegal ended their season.

Then, in September 2014, came the attack. This brought unwanted public attention to Cooper and created headlines in the national press: "I remember a guy in a car following me with a camera... Guys knocking on the door".[1] Mick Bohan — then part of the Dublin management team — and Gavin visited Cooper in the Mater Hospital.[1] Cooper received professional counselling and it took 18–24 months to fully recover.[1]

A foot injury sustained during club month in April led to Cooper being sidelined for the 2019 Leinster Senior Football Championship.[4] He began to slip down the ranks with Dublin, appearing as part of the "B" team during training games.[4] For Cooper it was like when he had been dropped by Pat Gilroy.[4]