Dunshaughlin’s unfinished business

TOMMY GILL’S virtuoso performance against UCD ensured one thing.

We won’t see Leinster club champions this side of Christmas. There is no other conclusion to draw from the fact Dunshaughlin and Rathnew meet in Newbridge this weekend for a place in the final.

Whatever the mix of chemistry, each meeting develops into a soap opera. Sunday will be the seventh time they have crossed paths in the past three seasons. Twice before, they have brought us Lucas esque trilogies with the score one battle apiece. Sunday, as Dunshaughlin’s manager Eamon Barry says, is about unfinished business. It always is with these two.

At least neither manager can say he doesn’t know much about his opponents. “We have unfinished business with Rathnew. With all due respect to UCD, this was the game we wanted. We are still hurting from the way we threw away a four point lead in the replay last year (Rathnew, in one of their many astonishing comebacks, scored 1-1 in injury time of extra time). We want to put that right.”

It’s been a strange old season for Dunshaughlin. Out of the championship at one stage, the increasingly common reprieve of an illegal player gave them a second chance, they huffed and puffed their way to a third successive Meath title. Barry hasn’t been impressed by any of it.

“I haven’t been happy with any game we have played in the last six months,” their manager says. “The team are capable of playing better. They know that themselves. If we perform like we can on Sunday, we can beat Rathnew. If we play like we did all year, we don’t have a chance.

Perhaps Barry, who challenged Sean Boylan’s claims to the Royal throne this year only losing by 49 votes to 30, is being a little harsh on his side. After all, they did win their third Meath title. And beat Rathvilly by 12 points. Doesn’t he know the cliché about the team winning matches playing poorly.

“People say that’s a good sign, but it’s only a good sign if a team get out of the rut and start improving on their performances. For us, it has been similar performances.”

Should the teams become entangled in another trilogy, it will put another dent in the credibility of the club competition. A week after people watched DJ Carey and Peter Canavan splash around in the muck, the championship may continue until the New Year.

“The problem lies with the inter county championship being too long. It’s being dragged out, for whatever reasons. There is no reason why, if properly organised, the championship couldn’t be run off within a condensed three to four month period. So by the end of August, the concentration could be on the club scene and these players will get the conditions their hard work deserves.

“Club players are getting a raw deal from the GAA at the moment. There is supposed to be a club season between 1st of December and the end of January. Where is it?”

While Barry’s anger at the current congestion is understandable, he admits it won’t matter a hoot should Dunshaughlin get into their first Leinster final this Sunday. Football has taken over the village that Dublin’s growth has made a town. And everyone is talking about ‘the black and amber’.

Although Dunshaughlin is now a dormitory town of the capital (with some of the worse traffic congestion in the country), Barry points out the core of the club circles around seven or eight families. The Kellys, the Kealys, the Dowds.

It will be a few years before the club appreciates the value of being enveloped in suburbia. “Those new people who have moved into Dunshaughlin, they won’t be involved with the club for another seven or eight years, until their families get older. So, even though it is a town, the club still has a village feel.”

Lack of success at club level is a Royal theme. No Meath team has ever captured the All-Ireland club title, and ironically, Barry was the member of the last club side, Walterstown, to have any tangible success in Leinster. That was 20 years ago.

“People talk about no Meath club winning Leinster. Maybe, we just haven’t been good enough over the past 20 years. The standard of club football in Meath is nothing like the quality in Dublin. Meath teams just aren’t good enough and I include Dunshaughlin in that,” Barry says.

With the current Leinster champions occupying his thoughts, Barry has had no time to dwell on the disappointment of not getting the Meath job, not that there was any real disappointment.

“I knew once Sean went again I wouldn’t get it. People in Meath are probably saying I have set my stall out for down the road, but I have never made any secret that I would like to become Meath manager some day. That’s the intention. It’s always been my ambition, but things change year to year. In a few year’s time, it mightn’t be a burning ambition.”

By the time Boylan finally steps from his throne, Barry might have master minded a first Meath club success in the province for 22 years. Or even more. But to Sunday first. “Rathnew are the current champions. That’s our aim. And we have waited 12 months to get them.”