Roughing up Ronaldo and the Dubs
I’m glad it’s Tottenham and not Liverpool that have Real Madrid for company in this year’s Champions’ League group stages. Seeing Ronaldo at Anfield would be nice, but not for long.
The lads who amuse me are the ones roaring at the television to rough up yer man, that fancy dan Ronaldo on the wing, take him out for a ride. Get physical with him. Knock him off his stride. Like the best of the best haven’t tried.
Like the best of the best haven’t tried to take down Dublin’s forwards in the past few years. Half them are over 6ft, 14 stone, can run 100 metres like the wind and will blow the GPS vests off themselves. This isn’t the Dubs of 15 or even 10 years ago .
Remind me again why the opposition doesn’t get stuck into Ronaldo? Because he’s bigger than the full-back on him, better in the air, and runs faster with the ball than the full-back does without it. And so the defender stands off. Same with Dublin’s attack. They have the opposition’s respect because they have earned it.
They’re all playing well, the starters and the options. There’s no Flash Harrys. Critically, there doesn’t seem to be a massive selfishness. ‘My six points from play’ type of thing.
Occasionally I’ve seen one or two of them get frustrated they didn’t get a pass, but it’s very rare. They have a cohesive forward line, and they don’t have all their eggs in the basket of two inside forwards retaining their form. Their sextet could contribute 2-10 a game. What other attack in the country can do that?
Paul Mannion has impressed me how strong he has got. Con O’Callaghan has blended in seamlessly. Eoghan O’Gara is back. It all looks perfect until you think of the one sort of opponent who might poke a stick in their spokes.
I mentioned Armagh’s James Morgan last week, that sticky, uncompromising defender whose sole purpose in life seems to be nullifying the opposition danger man?
Tyrone have six of them. Or eight, or ten. Kerry don’t bring that edge when they face Dublin. Kerry will play with you and have a go. Tyrone have it though. Champions invariably have it. I’ve no problem saying that. What’s the alternative – coming down on the train every year, crying into your pint?
Tyrone have been eye-balling this game for a long time. They are conditioned better, very confident in where they are at, confident they have found players, and the right sort of player to suit their game. Plus there’s the rallying cry with Sean Cavanagh going.
They drew with Dublin in the League on a cold February night, with they as much as the watching public possibly not understanding or appreciating what a critical turning point that may have been in their development.
Have they enough to depower Dublin? For all Tyrone’s progress this calendar year, they haven’t beaten a footballing powerhouse in championship since 2008. Hence, very few of the squad for tomorrow have overcome a Mayo, Dublin or Kerry in a championship match.
As if there aren’t enough of incentives, there has to be huge hunger from that. The sense in Tyrone’s dressing room that while we’ve
arrived, we haven’t really
arrived until we beat one of these. A new generation writing their own history.
Dublin are rightly favourites, but Tyrone are 5/2 or slightly better on some markets yesterday. That’s meaty.
Have they enough when it comes down to it? I don’t think they have, but of the three contenders looking to dethrone Dublin, they are best equipped to nullify the champions. There’s that word again. Nullify.
Kerry had plenty of those nullifiers in the mid-noughties. Lads would take your head off — and that was in training. You mightn’t have been the most popular cat on the street, or in Montrose, but you’d be going out to the Gleneagle in the winter to collect your All- Ireland medal.
Were Kilkenny above that? Ask the boys from Tipp and Galway.
It’s going the extra bit. Dr Crokes would never train over Christmas after we won the county. The season was long enough, we deserved a break. No, we didn’t.
You want to win an All-Ireland or don’t you? We trained 16 of the 27 days after the provincial campaign in December. How much do you want something? How much do you want to be in an All-Ireland final? It’s the only imponderable none of us can answers — not even the Dublin players? How hungry are they for more? The three-in-a-row. Will they match Tyrone’s absolute determination not to be beaten? I don’t know will it be as good a football match as today’s Kerry-Mayo replay, but Dublin-Tyrone will be more fascinating.
The All-Ireland quarter-finals invariably throw up a storyline, a surprise. But the surprises get you to the beginning of August, not the end of it. This weekend is about cold-eyed pragmatism, the best four teams in the championship countenancing no obstacles as they zone in on September 17th.
It’s the part of the season I’m missing. At the quarter-final, I had that dart in the heart looking down at the dugouts and the sideline.
I never missed the League, but I miss the analysis done at this stage of the year. The 10% we have to find.
You find a lot of that in the analysis of yourself, and of the next opposition.
Having conversations with guys around you. ‘I think there’s a bit of a chink here’. I loved looking for those things. The fine margins. There’s nothing more satisfying that finding that, exposing it, executing it and landing the All-Ireland.
The margins are getting finer. Dublin will get an intense scrutiny of their football, their stomach tomorrow. Tyrone will leave everything on them. It’s the first time in months the champions will face such an examination and if they emerge from it, they’ll bounce into September.
