Dublin leave it late to turn on turbo

LIKE the gale force wind at O’Moore Park, Dublin huffed and puffed for three quarters of this Leinster championship opener before finally blowing Westmeath away.

Trailing by a point at half-time it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the Blues would crash and burn just as they did here two years ago.

But with a strong wind at their backs they slowly but surely ground Westmeath down before finishing with a flourish to run out easy winners.

The Blues never looked like losing after the restart and ultimately outscored their opponents by a whopping 3-14 to 0-3 in that second period. But a more telling stat is that with 58 minutes on the clock Dublin only led by six points and progression to face Wexford in a repeat of last year’s semi-final on June 14 was far from secured.

Perhaps the real difference between this Dublin team and previous incarnations is the presence of a genuine game-breaker in David O’Callaghan.

On his first championship appearance since 2004 – having played football with Dublin for much of the intervening period – he hit 1-6 and his 59th minute goal kick-started that late onslaught.

A minute later full-forward John Kelly followed his lead, sniping a shot from close range to rattle the Westmeath net again.

But it was O’Callaghan’s name that was reverberating around the Portlaoise venue afterwards. His goal summed up his day. Waiting beneath a high ball into the Westmeath goalmouth he put ‘keeper Mark Briody under pressure before whipping the ball away off his attempted puck out and burying it in the net. After that it proved a case of how much Dublin could rack up before the final whistle with Kelly and debutant James Burke, a Waterford native, also on the goal trail.

“David was very good for us, he’s a top class forward,” said Dublin manager Tommy Naughton.

“David took the ball off the goalkeeper and got an important goal for us and we got another soon after.

“Up to that there was only a few of points in it. They were threatening and they looked dangerous every time they went forward.

“When we got the two goals in quick succession everyone felt a bit better about things and we could play a bit more freely.

“Up to that we were always worried because they were hurling quite well and we didn’t seem to be up to the intensity of championship.

“But it worked out well in the end.” For Westmeath it’s back to the Christy Ring Cup to defend their title having only been included in the Leinster championship by the provincial council as reward for winning the Tier 2 competition last year.

“We can hurl a lot better than that,” lamented Westmeath boss Johnny Dooley. “Anyone who would have seen us playing in the league would know that. Our lads didn’t play to their potential today, that’s probably the most disappointing thing.”

Goals clearly win games but it wasn’t always certain they’d come for Dublin. They trailed 0-7 to 0-8 at half-time after an evenly contested first-half.

Westmeath sprung injured captain and talisman Brendan Murtagh from the bench after 22 minutes and gained vital momentum with five of the next eight points going their way. Andrew Mitchell, who’d replaced Murtagh as free-taker from the start hit four of their first-half tally with Pat Clarke notching fine back to back points.

Crucially though, Westmeath hadn’t racked up enough with the wind at their backs in that first-half and were made to pay by Dublin after the break.

In all, Westmeath only hit three second-half points and while Dublin weren’t prolific, at least until the final quarter, they forged confidently ahead. O’Callaghan’s second of the day levelled it at 0-8 apiece and Dublin eventually moved 0-16 to 0-10 clear with ‘Dotsy’ hitting several contenders for point of the game. Then came his and Dublin’s first goal, followed by Kelly’s to break Westmeath’s resistance with Burke hitting the third goal six minutes from time with O’Callaghan the creator.

DUBLIN: G Maguire; N Corcoran, S Hiney, T Brady; M Carton (0-1), R Fallon (0-3; 2 65), J Boland; J McCaffrey (0-1), S Lambert (0-2); J Burke (1-1), D Qualter, K Flynn (0-2); D O’Callaghan (1-6; 1f), J Kelly (1-1), P Carton (0-1).

Subs: R O’Carroll (0-2) for Qualter (32), D Curtin (0-1) for P Carton (44), S Mullen for O’Carroll (62), P O’Driscoll for Lambert (65), G Bennett for McCaffrey (66).

WESTMEATH: M Briody; G Gavin, P Greville, A Price; D Curley, D McCormack, C Jordan; B Connaughton, E Loughlin; A Mitchell (0-4; 4f), L Smith, P Clarke (0-2); J Shaw, P Dowdall, D McNicholas (0-2).

Subs: B Murtagh (0-3; 1f) for Connaughton (22), E Price for Smith (50), J Clarke for Mitchell (58), B Smith for Jordan (63).

Referee: C McAllister (Cork).