Mike Quirke on the key to Dublin's success: Stephen Cluxton
There were no such shocks at GAA headquarters earlier in the day. Kerry and Dublin took the lead and never looked back. It was plain sailing for the two best teams in the country in the last we will see of league semi-finals.
Dublin’s clash with Donegal at least had a bit more zip and tackling intensity about it, while Kerry v Roscommon was as bland as eating ice. Neither team seemed overly interested in the physical side of the game, and Kerry were happy to put on an exhibition of foot passing and forward movement while their opponents seemed surprisingly content to allow them that freedom of expression.
In the second semi-final, I watched Dublin set the speed to cruise control against Donegal, and though they had many top performers, it struck me how we may have started to take Stephen Cluxton’s importance to the Dubs somehow for granted.
I know we regularly eulogise his restarts, but he is so much more than just a good kicker. We’ve allowed ourselves to become conditioned to expect his accuracy under pressure as the norm, and we fail to appreciate the sustained excellence he delivers.
In the past 10 to 15 years, GAA presidents have come and gone, Congress is always good for some playing modification, but nobody has come close to having the transformative effect on how Gaelic football is played more than the Dublin goalkeeper.
Sure, there have been more talented footballers, bigger superstars, but none in my opinion have impacted the shape of the game quite as profoundly as Cluxton.
Most would argue that Diarmuid Connolly is Dublin’s best player and talisman. But as he sat kicking his heels with the rest of the substitutes in the middle of the Hogan stand last Sunday, his teammates continued to roll like a boulder trundling down a hill – gathering pace all the time.
His absence wasn’t felt in the slightest against the defensive structure of Donegal.
We wondered how the champions could cope without Rory O’Carroll at full back? Up stepped James McCarthy to shackle Michael Murphy on the edge of the square. No sweat. Last year’s Footballer of the Year, Jack McCaffrey, is another man that Jim Gavin has to plan without. Panic hasn’t set in either at his unavailability.
All of these players, as unquestionably talented as they are, can be replaced and the Dublin GAA world just seems to keep on spinning.
But the day Cluxton retires or picks up a serious injury, their world may fall right off its axis, such is his importance to his teammates and their game-plan.
In Kerry, we always tried to confuse him slightly by playing a zone against Dublin.
Essentially, instead of just marking your man and following him blindly, you protected a specific zone so as not to allow Cluxton a big area to kick the ball into.
If you try to match up with the Dubs man on man, you are destined to fail - they have too much athleticism and he will invariably hit them in stride and they’re off to the races.
A few years ago, he had a few pet spots he felt most comfortable going to - so we always tried to take those away - just to try and take him out of his rhythm.
We viewed him like a quarter back in American football, sitting in the pocket scanning for options.
And like any great QB, if you give his defenders and midfielders time and space to run routes and get open, he’ll find them time and again like he did against Donegal.
The more confusion you can throw at him the better your chances are of stealing possession. Concentration is a key part to playing against Cluxton, if you switch off for just a few seconds, he can make you look silly. He’s been doing it for years.
That’s why I always smile when I hear people talking about ‘pushing up’ on the Dublin kick-out.
Like nobody ever thought of that before! But if you try the full press on Cluxton for 70 minutes, he will just pick you apart for fun. He wants you to push up, so he can expose you further out. He wants to show you how accurate he is at 50 yards. It’s like a game of chicken for him, he’s just toying with teams.
Your only chance against him to keep mixing it up, keep giving him different looks. Some zone, some man to man, keep changing what you’re showing him to keep him from getting comfortable. Mayo switched from a zone to a press last year and had success, but you can’t sustain that for an entire game.
Last Sunday, he was near his flawless best again against a Donegal zone. His kicking was obviously excellent, but it’s his decision making for me that separates him from all of his contemporaries. He breeds such composure and confidence to his teammates out the field, by making the right call nearly every time.
He has turned the Dublin kick-out into something resembling an uncontested scrum in rugby – the opposition line up like they have a chance of getting the ball, but really they know, it’s just a pretence, they have no hope. (Indeed Rob Carroll of gaelicstats pointed out yesterday that Down, Donegal, Cork, and Kerry managed to win just five of Dublin’s kick-outs between them in the regular season.)
Be under no illusions, despite all their attacking flair, Stephen Cluxton heads towards this summer still firmly as Dublin’s most important player. He’s the only one they really can’t do without. The remaining puzzle that teams must try to solve to give themselves any chance.
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