With Kerry labouring to seven in the league and none in their three championship ties so far, O’Callaghan has blazed a trail with seven of his own, his three against Kerry the first time the Kingdom have been hit by a hat-trick (as much as records allow for such inspection).
O’Callaghan has been imperious this season, at least since Dublin restored him to the danger zone, that space in and around the goal where his predatory instincts are arguably sharpest and the most feared in the game.
Even David Clifford may yield to O’Callaghan when it comes to goal conversion. From 32 championship games, Clifford has 12, an average of .37 per game, marginally ahead of O’Callaghan, whose 18 from 50 championship matches is .36.
Where they diverge sharply, though, is the weighting of the matches they have scored goals in. Clifford has played in four All-Ireland semi-finals (2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023) and four All-Ireland finals (2019 and replay, 2022 and 2023) and has yet to score a goal, though he has delivered some of his best performances in those games.
O’Callaghan has scored six goals (2017, 2018 and 2019, twice, semi-finals and 2017 and 2020 finals) between his six All-Ireland semi-finals and six All-Ireland finals.
There’s just that sense that from close range O’Callaghan is a touch more ruthless. Even on the night of the league last February when O’Callaghan stung Kerry for those three goals, Clifford was high and wide from two opportunities that constituted goal chances.
The master of the back-door cut, O’Callaghan has brought brilliant stepwork and ingenuity to some of his goals. From the dummies he sold Tyrone’s Ronan McNamee early in the 2017 semi-final and Mayo’s Lee Keegan in the second half of the 2019 semi to his awareness of space to score Dublin’s second goal in the 2020 final against Mayo, he has been sublime given half a chance.
Against Kerry in February, his patience and movement for his third goal, waiting until he knew the moment to go and receive a pass from Brian Fenton, showed timing and anticipation few players possess.
It says something about a forward like him that he has scored as many goals, six, against Kerry as the amount of times he has played them.
O’Callaghan is already on a goal per game in this championship, on the mark against Meath, Offaly, Louth and Roscommon last time out.
It’s not quite Séamus Callanan territory yet, recalling 2019 when Tipperary’s All-Ireland-winning captain scored a goal in each of their seven championship games.
But with seven goals scored in 12 competitive games in 2024, O’Callaghan is enjoying arguably his best spell in an illustrious Dublin career.
His 3-34 in eight league games has been followed up by 4-12 in four championship games. He has assumed some free-taking duties with Dean Rock retired and Cormac Costello not always on the field at the same time, but still, his returns are rising.
In last year’s Division 2 campaign, he scored 0-17 and followed up with 2-28 in the championship, despite not scoring against Kerry, the only time to draw a blank in the six games against them.
His constant availability has helped that, too. In the early part of his career, he had club commitments with the Cuala hurlers that took him out of the 2017 and 2018 leagues after a league debut against Kerry off the bench in the opening game of the 2016 campaign, his only league appearance that year.
But since missing the 2022 All-Ireland series through injury, an absence that may have cost Dublin the title, O’Callaghan has been ever present, playing all 28 games.
A season that started slowly with a blank against Monaghan on the opening night of the league and two points scored against Mayo from a deeper position accelerated after those two early starts.
Dublin were transformed as much as O’Callaghan once he pushed in closer to goal for the Roscommon game in the third round, a night when he scored 0-7, including points from a mark and a free.
Historically, O’Callaghan mixes easily with some of the best goalscorers of any era. Kerry’s Mike Sheehy had a goal-to-game average of over .59, courtesy of his 29 goals from 49 championship games.
Sheehy, though, played football at a time when the average number of goals per game was much higher. In the 1971 championship, for instance, three years before he made his Kerry bow, 106 goals were scored in 32 games, an average of 3.3 per game. These days, goals per match can range from 1.8 last year to 2.6 in the previous year’s championship.
But O’Callaghan is currently ahead of Colm Cooper, who scored 35 goals in his 145 league and championship appearances (23 in his 85 championship games).
By comparison, O’Callaghan has scored 27 goals in 80 league and championship games, with his first four games in 2016 all as a late substitute.
Even against his fellow top Dublin marksmen Rock and Jimmy Keaveney, that strike rate compares favourably. When Rock signed off earlier this year, he had scored 24 goals from 132 appearances, some of them off the bench in the early part of his career.
Keaveney was more prolific, with 30 goals from 104 appearances, but again, in a different time when defensive parsimony wasn’t as prevalent. Bernard Brogan eclipsed them all, though, with 36 goals from 115 games.
Into his ninth season with the Dublin senior football squad, O’Callaghan continues to track similarly to those returns.
And this season is shaping like a peak.
