Fired-up Dublin can give Lyons a lift
It would be a victory they had been generally expected to manage 12 days ago. From the players and selector Paul Caffrey, who took over Lyon's role for the day while he watched the game from his hospital room, there is a ready acknowledgment that he was missed.
Yet when it came to the crunch and Dublin conceded a three-point lead that they would have been expected to hold on to, it is doubtful if Lyons or any of the other top coaches around could have done anything to prevent it. At the precise stage of the game when Dublin enjoyed the lead six minutes from the end of normal time, following the second of Ray Cosgrove's goals their real character was put to the test. But it was Donegal, and Adrian Sweeney specifically with his two late scores, who responded best.
Their performance testified to the preparation of the team by respected manager Mickey Moran (much admired for his coaching abilities, both at county level and in the international series) and the input of John Morrisson, who has a degree in psychology.
Paul Caffrey, a city-based Garda who works as a juvenile liaison officer, makes a number of interesting points about the match, notably that the most pertinent being that this Dublin team is relatively inexperienced. He also feels that many people under-rated Donegal the last day.
"I suppose that going into the match a lot of supporters would have thought that Dublin might be able for Donegal. But we certainly knew that they were a very good outfit and it did not surprise me how well they played, or how close the match was,'' he said. "What disappointed me a little bit was our performance. I expect Donegal to perform very similarly, if not better, this time.''
Quite simply, the challenge to the Dublin team is to show if they "are up to it at this level or not" it's a new competition and a step up from the Leinster campaign and a matter of the players showing that they can adjust accordingly. "It's still a relatively new team and a relatively inexperienced team!''
What has largely sustained Dublin's successful campaign to date has been their goal-scoring ability, with Cosgrove contributing five. His reintroduction to the team after a lapse of two years, allied to the addition of ex-minor Alan Brogan, has added an much more exciting dimension to their forward play. In contrast, it was decidedly unimaginative at stages of last year's competition, most notably in the two games with Kerry in Thurles and the improvement achieved since then is testament to the work of Lyons and his co-selectors over the winter months and in the National League.
"Dublin got to the All-Ireland quarter-final last year and are back at the same stage this year, with seven or eight new faces. The only way you are going to learn about your team is to be playing at this level and at this stage of the competition.
"It's a great learning process. The only way to measure yourself is on the 'big day'. The League is very important but it only tells you so much about a player," Caffrey said.
On the evidence of the display in the drawn game, Dublin are still some way off winning an All-Ireland title except that on paper they have as good a chance as any of the six teams remaining in contention.
It's obvious that they are going to have to win much more possession out around the middle of the field and tighten up in defence. Team captain Coman Goggins in particular has a huge incentive to play better, given that Adrian Sweeney was so influential all through the drawn game and was their saviour ultimately after Paul McGonigle had pointed the way with the first of the scores which earned them a draw. Conversely, full-forward Brendan Devenney will want to make a bigger contribution against Paddy Christie.
With Peadar Andrews likely to be given the job of policing Sweeney, it will be interesting to see if he can do better. My own belief is that Sweeney is too good a player to be negatived no more than the Donegal backs can realistically hope to stymie the threat from Brogan and Cosgrove at the other end - and maybe Dessie Farrell additionally.
Dessie Farrell's selection is something of a surprise given that he can hardly be expected to last 70 minutes, but nevertheless he has considerable experience to offer to offer. Accepting that replays invariably turn out to be very different,
Caffrey is expecting "a lot tighter game" tonight. "You find that teams tend to put an awful lot of emphasis on areas that they did not cover in the first game,"You might even have a situation where Dublin do not get a goal, but on the law of averages we should. he said.
He credits Lyons with having "a huge influence" on the team and says "he was missed" last time both in the build-up and during the actual game. "That is a measure of the man. This time everybody is looking forward to going back to Croke Park together.''
With the likelihood of a packed stadium, it holds promise of being an epic contest. I expect Dublin to get it right this time and, on the same reasoning, I feel it is Armagh they will be meeting in the semi-final on September 1.
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