Pulling Connolly out of hat Gavin’s best trick yet
“We’ve got James McCarthy back on the pitch, Eoin Murchan, Jonny Cooper, Diarmuid Connolly’s back training with us, Rob McDaid is back, Peadar Byrne Ó Cofaigh is with the U20s, Darren Gavin’s coming back this week as well so there’s a whole host of players who are returning to play and then there is the squad themselves.”
So nonchalant was Jim Gavin’s delivery about the return of Connolly, it could have been a Patrick Nice sketch from The Fast Show, the man who briefly and casually reports of the good luck that has befallen him: “Genevene’s uncle died unexpectedly and left me all his yachts. And then Tamera came running out of The Somerset House as fast as her little legs could carry her to tell me that I was a direct descendant of Kubla Khan. Which was nice.”
Interviewed by Dublin GAA TV, it was a classic case of Gavin controlling the controllables. There was no follow-up question or specifics. It was just those two words: Diarmuid Connolly. Gavin breaking the GAA news story of the summer on his own terms.
His poker face shouldn’t surprise anyone and yet it did. But what if it doesn’t mean as much to him as it does to us? Who’s to say Connolly will feature in a match-day panel when, for all his endeavour, Bernard Brogan hasn’t been able to do so this summer?
But for the administrative issue that prevented Connolly from returning to Boston, he would not be returning to Dublin this summer. We don’t know if Gavin was always in a position of power in his relationship with Connolly but he certainly is now.
You suspect a manager would have become either tired or annoyed by the endless questions about a player who was not part of his panel but not Gavin. At the Leinster SFC launch, he said: “We’ve gone to war with Diarmuid on the playing field over many, many years. Of course, Dublin supporters and myself would love to see him back.”
Following the opening Leinster win over Louth, he refused to rule him out:
I’d open that net up wide for any player who has been performing well, be it at senior, intermediate or junior clubs in Dublin, we’re interested in them.
Connolly has provided a welcome distraction from the drive for five hype and his will-he, won’t-he story doesn’t have the potential to upset best-laid plans as the saga surrounding Henry Shefflin in 2010.
Dublin supporters are split into two camps on the player: Those who believe he will be required to make history and those who believe there would be a sense of justice about the 32-year-old being part of history.
Gavin’s lack of sentimentality as a manager has served him so well that the only consideration he has is for the former school of thought.
But time is against Connolly. Returning this week, he faces a huge battle to nail down a spot in the squad to face Roscommon. A couple of weeks more and he may have jumped up a few places in the queue to be considered for the trip to Omagh but if he hasn’t made it by then, will he ever?
Because Tyrone are their final game, Dublin have no chance for a let-up this year as they did in 2018. Think back to their last Super 8 game against Roscommon when Eoghan O’Gara scored 2-2 and Colm Basquel started but the pair were seen in neither the All-Ireland semi-final or final.
Connolly playing on a B team and desperate to make up for lost time would keep the first-choice backs more than honest. Who Gavin names in his match-day panel from here on in are his best. A return for Connolly would be nice but he is among the rest.
john.fogarty@examiner.ie
Cork must return to class of '99 to advance
Given John Meyler’s insistence on Sunday that Cork must “dig deeper” in their search for players his disinclination to source more talents from this year’s U20 team doesn’t add up.
After the depth of the panel was exposed for the second year running, he listed names of his young 20-somethings but didn’t mention Robert Downey or Ger Millerick, the two U20 players he has had in with the group.
Following the win over Westmeath, Meyler did refer to the pair along with Daire Connery and Evan Sheehan and it made sense that he would rest Downey and Millerick for that preliminary quarter-final when the U20s had a Munster semi-final against Clare just days afterwards.
However, the likes of Brian Cody and Liam Sheedy have been a lot keener to give youth its head with Cody blooding in Adrian Mullen and other U20s like Michael Carey featuring on the bench. Sheedy has given valuable game-time to Jake Morris in the two games against Limerick (he might have seen more on Sunday but for the U20s game) and Jerome Cahill came off the bench in the Munster final.
Not that there is inertia in the Cork team — Meyler made a series of changes through the summer — but there was an element of the deckchairs being rearranged. The form of Shane O’Regan and Brian Turnbull in recent weeks should have turned his head.
Turnbull looks and sounds like a leader.
Downey, Millerick, O’Regan and Turnbull were all born in 1999.
Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s class of ‘99 were told they were too young but defied the Alan Hansen school of logic. It’s to another class of “W 20 years ago that Cork must now turn to.
The power of playing at home
Does Jim Gavin ever have to give a pep talk?
It’s a valid question when you take into account the reaction to their wins. There is obviously ample praise for the All-Ireland champions but some of it is lost when their preferential circumstances are reasoned for their results.
Following their Leinster final win over Meath, it was the funding argument and in the wake of beating Cork on Saturday their familiarity with Croke Park was highlighted once more.
Although their earning power carries weight, Dublin don’t make the rules. They have boots, will travel and their record on the road reads mighty fine but as the likes of Kevin Walsh and Shane Curran have mentioned their margin of victory mightn’t be so impressive at provincial venues.
In their respective nine- and 10-point victories on Sunday, the importance of home advantage was as evident for Donegal and Kerry as it was for Dublin and it will be again this Saturday when they will all but end Roscommon’s season.
Before that, Cork must play a second game in Croke Park in seven days and, while the players won’t mind getting more experience of Headquarters, the expense for their supporters is prohibitive.
As one GAA official suggested to us on Sunday, the dwindling crowds for Dublin’s early Championship games — 30,214 watched Dublin v Cork on Saturday — may end up prompting a further change in the GAA’s Super 8 venue policy. But it shouldn’t be money that compels the GAA to level the playing field.
