Learning for the long road ahead
“This is not about revenge…” said Donaghy solemnly.
“This is about winning the league,” added Brogan approvingly.
The substance of the script didn’t quite chime with the tone and you’d imagine that the television ratings men would have been happier had they been able to persuade the lads to agree that tonight’s game was “about revenge, revenge and nothing but revenge”.
Or maybe Setanta realised that the idea of selling a round one Allianz league match as a blockbuster revenge drama would prove a stretch even for the considerable alchemical powers of those involved in the marketing of televised sports.
In the end, despite the thespian talents of Donaghy and Brogan, the slightly less portentous idea of the national league as a do-or-die competition in its own right proved an equally hard sell.
The truth is that attempts to sell the league as anything more than an enjoyable and intermittently interesting curtain-raiser to the championship will always come across as overcooked. (Where, by the way was the off-season clamour about television rights and the fact that games like tonight’s are now effectively behind a paywall?)
So, if tonight’s meeting between Dublin and Kerry is not about realising vengeful dreams or making an early bid for glory in April, what exactly is it about? It is customary at this time of year to contemplate the statistical correlation between league form and championship success and to draw overly neat conclusions from past seasons.
But for successful managers and teams the importance of league matches can be a slippier concept than the statistician appreciates.
Take for example, the lessons absorbed by Dublin and Cork from last year’s League final.
Last Tuesday, Cork manager Conor Counihan was in the papers claiming that his team would have learned more about themselves had they lost last year’s decider against Dublin, and that the misleading nature of their victory might have contributed to a meek exit from the championship.
Dublin footballer Kevin McManamon was in the news on the same day, talking about the same game. For McManamon, last year’s league final loss to Cork was important in that it highlighted weaknesses in Dublin that were later addressed on the road to All-Ireland immortality.
Clearly, certain league games, whether won, drawn or lost, glamorous or otherwise, can settle into the psyche of a team in different ways.
When they trace the trajectory of a season, managers and players often point to specific league games and a dogged win in forbidding Crossmaglen in February or a narrow defeat in windswept Castlebar in March can become an important milestone when recounting the tale of an epic journey.
When lips loosened in Dublin in the aftermath of last year’s All-Ireland win, for example, players and management made reference to their one point league win over Kerry as a crucial moment in their season.
Last week, Kieran Donaghy talked about the three games that Kerry lost by a point last year, echoing recent comments by his manager about the need to relearn the knack of winning close encounters.
Even so, had Dublin’s improbable comeback not materialised in September it is unlikely that their earlier victory over Kerry in spring would be recalled in either county as anything more than a meaningless entry in the record books.
So perhaps the significance of these spring skirmishes is only revealed in hindsight when the muddled reality of spring becomes more clearly defined under the blue skies of summer.
Does anyone really believe that Kerry, Cork or Dublin’s ultimate fate last summer was appreciably influenced by a few key minutes in a national league game?
As they face into a new campaign with familiar expectations hanging over them, Jack O’Connor and Pat Gilroy will be too concerned with more mundane matters to worry about the deeper meanings of tonight’s result.
O’Connor will be looking at the likes of Shane Enright, Brian McGuire and Peter Crowley for further signs that he has men ready to ease the burden on his ageing backline.
He will also be hoping that Paul Galvin’s form continues on the upward curve that close observers have noted of late, that David Moran’s rehabilitation proves successful, and that competition for places throughout the field will keep the emerging talents interested enough to provoke a response from more established names.
Pat Gilroy will have one ear cocked for those early bum notes that often signal the onset of difficult second album syndrome while, at the same time, keeping an eye open for those few changes that can reinvigorate champions and keep the chasing pack guessing.
There was little sign of such reinvigoration a fortnight ago in Newbridge when Dublin, presumably leaden-footed after early season training, looked well off the pace when going under by six points against Kildare.
Players like Ross McConnell, Michael Darragh McAuley and Eamon Fennell gave away some cheap frees, Paul Brogan walked for two yellow cards and Diarmuid Connolly can consider himself extremely lucky to be available for selection after his antics. All in all, it was an uncharacteristically sloppy showing from Dublin but the substitution of McAuley on 19 minutes is bound to have focussed minds.
This time last year, Pat Gilroy and Dublin were setting the tone with their 6am training sessions. Their early season momentum, flair and intensity meant that they would have 16 goals scored by the time the seven rounds of football were played. Two more in the final against Cork confirmed that very few teams were as single-minded in front of goal as the Dubs. We have to assume things are going to be different this time with managers devising all sorts of plans to deny them the goals they crave.
The most instructive league game for Dublin last year was their spectacular mid-March shootout with Mayo when Diarmuid Connolly bagged three goals within the first 25 minutes and they had their 14 point lead whittled down to nought in an even shorter space of time. After that Pat Gilroy was able to use hard evidence to convince his players that hard graft from the forwards made them a good team but without it they were average. Dublin haven’t stopped grafting since.
Kerry, too, know the value of working for one another and no matter how you dress it up, they appeared to stop doing that when allowing the Dubs in for glory late in last year’s final. We must take the players at face value when they say tonight is not about revenge but it still won’t stop certain players giving more than they normally would on a cold February night. Four defeats on the trot in competitive games against Dublin might just be a bit much take, even at this early stage.
Whatever the result, Kerry and Dublin will be glad if they leave Croke Park tonight having learnt a little more about themselves and the long road ahead. There will be time enough to ponder those deeper meanings when the narrative of the season has played itself out and the winter talk begins again.
The great epiphanies can wait. For now, a few minor revelations will do. In James O’Donoghue, Barry John Keane, Paddy Curtin and the three novices at the back, Kerry have more scope for these minor revelations and thus, I take them to win.
