Mike Quirke: Late-game accuracy and efficiency - Dublin have the stamp of champions
STRIDE FOR STRIDE: Dublin’s Paddy Small and Mayo’s Matthew Ruane battle for possession in Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC final.
I’ve mentioned here earlier that Dublin have seemingly turned into the GAA’s very own four-minute mile — a psychological barrier as much as anything else that has most opponents beaten before they even step on the field.
In 1954, Roger Bannister did what nobody of the time believed was humanly possible. He was thought to be crazy for even thinking it was achievable, before eventually running the mile in three minutes 59.4 seconds. It was an astounding feat. In doing the seemingly impossible, he had given the world of athletics a belief that they too could move mountains.
The psychology of it is fascinating; generation after generation of runner believed it couldn’t be done and ultimately never did. Once they saw the feat achieved, it was a mere 46 days later before Bannister’s record was broken.
There were many hoping Mayo could give Gaelic football a similar injection of belief on Saturday, but despite their best efforts, the couldn’t better four minutes on the stopwatch as they crossed the finish line.
I’m pretty sure none of us could ever have envisaged a GAA year quite like this. An All-Ireland final played inside an eerily quiet and empty Croke Park only six days out from the turkey and cranberry sauce on Christmas day is staggeringly unfamiliar.
As the world continues to reel from a global plague of biblical proportions, a story scarcely relatable to a great work of fiction, the achievement of the GAA and all those responsible for the running of our flagship inter-county competition to a successful conclusion is deserving of huge praise.
Despite the complete upheaval of 2020, it was somewhat reassuring to find ourselves back in the middle a relatively familiar, if one-sided rivalry. Dublin did what they’ve been doing for the bones of the last decade. The inevitability of them getting over the line, even without playing anywhere nearly as well as they can for much of the game, was evident from as early as the 13-second mark when James McCarthy rampaged through the middle of the Mayo defence before slipping to Rock for the fastest goal ever scored in a Sam Maguire decider.
It was an ominous start by the champions, but as they have done so many times in the past as well, Mayo responded in typical fashion and stuck in there.
The Dubs were wiped out on both sets of kickouts in that first half but somehow managed to head to the dressing rooms two points to the good at half time. Con O’Callaghan’s slippery movement and volleyball spiked finish for a badly needed three-pointer after 25 minutes was as crucial for Dublin as it was deflating for Mayo at a time when they were well on top.
It sucked a bit of life out of the game and some belief from Mayo. After 50 minutes of the contest, the two sides were all square. Were we about to get our Roger Bannister moment?
Not this year.
Seemingly from nowhere, Dublin snatched a five-point lead with the quality of their reinforcements and game management pushing them into pole position against a gallant but flagging Mayo.
Fuelled by a sixth title in six years, there will surely be plenty of discussions in living rooms and kitchen tables of every GAA household in the land over the coming weeks about the reasons for their prolonged journey to the very top of the Gaelic football food chain.
Most people are good at identifying the problems, while few are coming up with meaningful solutions to help improve everybody aspiring to be more like them on and off the field of play.
For all the obvious and well-documented inequalities, I still love watching them play. Despite the abundance of athleticism and power in their ranks, they still move the ball with greater confidence than anybody else in the game. They have developed a shared belief in their ability, borne out of their emphasis on continuous improvement on their skills and game management.
They seem to get better as the clock wears on, early game sloppiness is replaced with late game accuracy and efficiency. The accumulation of doing all the things well grows into the type of performance that we’ve become accustomed to in the recent past.
Mayo were well in this game for long spells and did as much right as they have done in any of their recent final appearances. They showed up and gave everything they had, but just didn’t have enough. There’s certainly no shame in that. As Dublin have done time and again, the stepped on the gas with the game in the balance and leaders emerged.
Brian Fenton grew, Kilkenny became even more of a focal point, Con O’Callaghan continued to make big plays. Brian Howard came off the bench at half time and had a big influence, so too Paul Mannion who exemplified their embarrassment of riches when he came on a kicked a hugely difficult free.
You’d have to feel James Horan and Mayo will take plenty of positives and have plenty to build on moving into next season having infused their side with fresh faces who will learn and improve from the experience.
While we wait for a team to break the GAA’s very own four-minute mile and a Roger Bannister to emerge, Dublin remain the envy of the Gaelic football world and are the standard that the rest of us must continue to strive to reach.
Inevitable and much-needed talk of levelling the playing field shouldn’t focus on tearing them down, it has to be about developing a coherent national strategy aimed at raising everybody else up.
