Dublin must ripple the net if they are to take the next step
Late as usual. If the gods would sort out the traffic, Wexford Park for hurling on a sunny evening would be paradise.
Good friendly people. Well organised. Nice pitch. Great atmosphere. Sit high up and you can see the blue sea.
Dublin against Wexford is one of those benchmark games. When Dublin were slowly coming up, how close they got to Wexford was a mark of how far they had got.
Now things have changed. Under Anthony Daly, Wexford haven’t bothered Dublin in a serious way. Wexford are working on righting the ship at underage and filtering the results through, as Dublin once did. Their reward for now is to get the pat on the head that people used to give Dublin. They were further away in points terms on Saturday night than they were when the teams played in Wexford Park last summer. They played better hurling though. They are going the right way. A gallop in the qualifiers might be good. That’s all you can say.
They played well enough last Saturday but had to take off Rory Jacob and Jack Guiney from the inside line and withdraw their two midfielders as well. Alan McDonald looks like a find and with time will develop. Dublin always looked as if they had another gear.
Dublin have come from measuring themselves against Laois and Wexford (bad year to lose to Laois, good year to get close to Wexford) to standing nose-to-nose with the so called big boys. They have been in two of the last three All-Ireland semi-finals. They have won a Leinster title and they have won a National League. They seem to have shaken off the old inferiority complex and realised that Dublin have as much right to win an All-Ireland as anybody.
Pats on the head about beating Wexford in June are no good to Anthony Daly anymore. The revolution won’t be complete until the All-Ireland comes to Dublin.
The job won’t be done until young footballers sitting on the bench for the Dublin footballers look enviously at the fellas they once hurled with. It won’t be over until people stop saying it would be great to see Dublin win an All-Ireland and start saying ‘how do we beat these hoors?’
I have friends in Dublin hurling. I know the work has been done. A massive amount of it underneath the surface, where nobody sees. I know the county deserves an All-Ireland. Deserve doesn’t come into it in sport. You get what you take.
Dublin need a goalscorer. They are crying out for a serious goal threat. Eddie Brennan (26 goals in 48 championship games) packed it in, in 2012. He was responsible for just one of the 36 goals that Kilkenny scored in their last 20 championship games. That period includes last year when Kilkenny only scored two goals in six championship games and lost twice and drew once.
In that same stretch of 20 championship games, Dublin have scored just 18 goals. They have been shut out and scored no goals in 10 of those games.
I imagine that in Kilkenny training sessions; a forward who gets the ball inside the opposing 21 is taken away and shot if he doesn’t attempt to drive past his man. Channelling the ball backwards and out the field looking for a point probably means they wouldn’t waste the bullet.
Kilkenny switch the inside line work around. Look at those 36 goals. Richie Power, Richie Hogan, Henry Shefflin got five each, Eoin Larkin and Colin Fennelly got four each and TJ Reid and Taggy Fogarty got three each. After last year’s drought, they have spent the winter auditioning goalscorers. They have pushed Colin Fennelly on, to the point where he will do serious damage. I love the look of him as an attacker. Serious intent. Brave, bold and with great acceleration he has the look of a man who has been told no backing down and no palming it off. Do the damage. Inflict the pain.
Look back at the games Kilkenny have lost in the last 10 years. Wexford 2004.
Galway 2005. Tipp 2010. Galway 2012. Dublin and Cork 2013. Think of the significance of goals in each of them. The Cork game was the only time they lost to a team which scored fewer goals than they did.
Look at the Dubs. Dublin’s only goal from play in six championship games against Kilkenny came from Danny Sutcliffe in 2013. It was also the only time in those six championship games that Dublin scored more goals in a game against Kilkenny. It was also the only day that Dublin stopped Kilkenny scoring a goal. Also the only time they beat Kilkenny. Sutcliffe’s goal was the winning margin (1-16 to 0-16) Dublin have won 12 championship matches since 2009 under Anthony Daly. In nine of those they have scored more goals or the same number of goals as the side they beat. Two wins over Wexford (2009: Won 0-18 to 1-13 and 2014: Won 0-22 to 1-14) and one over Galway (2011: Won 0-19 to 2-7) are the only times Dublin won while scoring fewer goals.
Dublin have lost nine championship matches under Daly. Apart from last year’s All-Ireland semi-final with Cork, they have scored less goals than the opposition in each those games. Cork and Dublin scored a goal apiece in last year’s clash.
In other words they have never lost a championship game under Daly when they have scored more goals than the opposition.
I know. I know. Stats. You don’t like them. Nobody wants to be beaten over the head with them. At least I am giving you a fancy graph with all this! (Not enough use of stats in our games — bit like sports psychology, people a little embarrassed by them but behind the scenes can be of massive help). Stats reinforce the point. In a game of inches, Dublin need to move on a bit every year if they are to win the All-Ireland not scoring goals or finding a way to do so means surrendering maybe half a foot. Too much.
I was surprised that younger forwards were given little or no game time by Dublin in the league. Where are all the younger guys like O’Rorke, Winters and Clabby, who we have noticed on underage teams and who have stuck with hurling? I don’t know how they are progressing but I can see that Colm Cronin who did get game time will adjust to championship hurling and make a contribution. There must be more.
There must be some blade that can draw blood somewhere in Dublin? David Treacy has been haunted by injuries and the blows to confidence that always being put on or taken off has on corner forwards. From what I’ve seen, Dotsie O’Callaghan just doesn’t do driving past. Mark Schutte looks like a handful and hopefully he recovers. Which brings me to Conal Keaney.
Conal Keaney was outstanding last Saturday night. Dublin’s great laoch. He had an unreal amount of possession. Attacked the ball. Sprayed the ball around. Most importantly for me, he scored five points from play. That’s his championship best though he has generally done well against Wexford. It’s not a criticism of Conal Keaney to point out that in big championship games, he has often brought the same qualities but made less impact on the scoreboard. In the last four games against Kilkenny, he has three points in total. He has the ability to make more telling incisions. Dublin need him doing that.
My argument is that Dublin have to decide if they haven’t enough piano movers at this stage and start letting the virtuoso guys play the piano a bit. A 6-1-2-3-2 formation without killers inside makes you hard to play against but makes it as hard for you to win the biggest prize. When you leave two inside, as Daly tends to do, you have to be good at recycling ball in the crowded middle third. Dublin are good at that but generally shoot on sight when they get a chance. That doesn’t suggest a lot of confidence in the ability of the inside pairing to win the difficult ball that comes in. You need those guys to win the hard ball and to take the man on every time, if not to go past him then at least to use his backward momentum against him to step back and create something.
It seems to me that this summer, the challenge for the Dubs is to get Conal Keaney or Danny Sutcliffe to spend substantial amounts of time near goal causing havoc. Dublin have enough players outside to think about feeding the goal shooters sometimes. Mark Schutte, should he recover, looks game to me for catching or breaking a lot of ball.
Get the warriors nearer the goals. Make a Plan B and a Plan C. Keep them guessing.
At last in modern hurling referees are clamping down on the spare hand muggings that have been a feature of the game for so long. That’s a hobby horse but an important one. With the spare hand foul on the decline, the goal scoring forward is coming back into fashion. The days of fellas with 20-plus championship goals in their career is coming again.
It’s a game of inches and the last few inches are the hardest fought over. Nobody will win an All-Ireland by surrendering them and hoping for the best. No revolution that just gets pats on the head is a complete revolution. Cry havoc and let’s see some green flags...
