Dublin winning by playing it simple
I must admit I didn’t share his confidence, in fact I fancied Galway to win – how wrong I was!
Forget about the score, Dublin were by far the better team. You hear all this talk now about game plans, but Dublin had the oldest game plan of all – just to win.
Any other plans they had went out the window very early with the injury to Tomás Brady. The switches Dublin made too were seamless. Peter Kelly went back to full-back, Liam Rushe to centre-back, and they were the two outstanding players in the game.
They closed up the middle, played it simple, just blew everything out of their way.
I’ve said it many times, this game isn’t rocket science.
One thing about this Dublin team is they’ve learned hugely from playing Kilkenny, especially the physicality; they’ve also learned how to win the ball in the air.
They don’t have the finer skills of many of the Kilkenny players but by God have they learned from Kilkenny’s team game in terms of how they surround a player in possession, how they hound you, bottle you up.
Dublin fitness coach Martin Kennedy is obviously doing a fantastic job and has them hopping off the ground.
Dublin are playing with massive confidence in their game, confidence in themselves, confidence in those around them. They don’t panic, they just work their way out of trouble. They absolutely steamrolled Galway.
Look at the play of Conal Keaney, Dotsy O’Callaghan, Paul Ryan – they scored 19 points between them, and it is a sign of a team with huge confidence that they’re having a go and not afraid to shoot.
One worry for them, however, is they didn’t create one clear goal chance. Then again when your defence is as good as Dublin’s and your forwards are scoring 19 points, how many goals do you need?
Daly has handled this whole business really well since the league final win. There’s been no loose talk from the camp, they have focused on hurling, and on winning. Now they go into a Leinster final against Kilkenny, and this is the beginning of a new rivalry in the game. Dublin will go in as underdogs and – as in Tullamore – that’s going to suit them. If the Dublin footballers are in the Leinster final as well, will the supporters get the opportunity to see a double in Croke Park?
So to Galway. They did more hurling in their lengthy warm-up than they did in the whole 70 minutes of the game. John McIntyre and his team need to realise that there’s more to warm-ups than drills – you must be ready mentally, and they weren’t. You can do that in a few minutes in the dressing room beforehand, you don’t need half an hour and 100 cones. At times Galway looked like the half-time primary school team with players in bunches chasing the ball and getting in each other’s way.
I have a question – who’s in charge of this Galway team on the field? Is it the manager or is it the players themselves? Joe Canning got a 20m free and should have taken the point but instead he went for glory, the ball was saved and cleared and the point lost. Twice also he came well into his own half to take long-distance frees and put them wide. Surely the manager should have been laying down the law here and told Joe to go back up front.
You’ve got to talk the talk as a manager, and John McIntyre can do that. But you’ve also got to be able to walk the walk, and this was a huge backward step for Galway since last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Tipperary.
We’ve heard enough excuses, we now need to see Galway doing what their club teams do so well, and competing successfully, playing with purpose.
We didn’t see it on Saturday evening. They need to take a long look in the mirror.
