Michael Darragh Macauley will be thinking of his late father tomorrow.

Donegal native Michael Macauley, who was a GP based in Rathfarnham, passed away last November at the age of 71 from pulmonary fibrosis as he awaited a lung transplant. His wife, Rosaleen, died from lung cancer when Michael Darragh was just 12.

The Dublin midfielder, who has become an ambassador for the Joe Brolly Opt for Life campaign, explained in the Irish Daily Mirror: "He was worked up for a transplant and he was told three times he was getting one, but it wasn't the right size and for whatever reason it didn't work out.

"If it had gone through, if it had fitted, he would have got 10 years and hopefully he would have been watching Dublin win 10 All-Irelands in-a-row but that's the way it goes. There's nothing we can do now about my father.

"All we can do now is try and help people in that situation in the future and try and increase the amount of donors that are around and hopefully people in a similar situation do get a lung and it does work out for them."

Needless to say, the Ballyboden St. Enda's clubman hopes to do his dad proud against Mayo tomorrow.

"He was very proud of all of his children and he was a big GAA man as well. He would have taken particular interest in it, telling the patients that came in that I scored a point on Sunday or whatever.

"It's not easy not having him around but that's just the way these things go. You try not to dwell on it but you try and pay respects in your own kind of way and try not to let it cross over into the football too much.

"I went over to him in the Hogan Stand (after the 2011 final) and I saw him in the Burlington afterwards as well. It's not easy not having him around for these sort of things, especially when he is such a big GAA man.

"He'd watch anything, a minor match or a ladies match, anything, he watched it all so it's not easy. He won't be here at the final but hopefully he has a good seat upstairs somewhere." Tweet

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