Cahill out to exorcise Blue demons

JUST like two years ago, Dublin and Tyrone will meet in Croke Park tonight long after the sun goes down but it was the defeat to the Ulster side on a rain-soaked August afternoon last summer which Barry Cahill points to as his darkest hour in blue.

Dublin entered the arena that day buoyed by a fourth successive provincial title, while three games in the qualifiers weren’t enough to dispel the doubts Tyrone were a team playing on borrowed time.

“It was probably the worst game in a Dublin jersey,” says Cahill. “The game was probably wrapped up with 20 or 25 minutes left. It’s a hard place to be in Croke Park when you’re seeing the game out.”

It was an afternoon out of character with the mutual relationship the teams had established. Dublin and Tyrone had met in league or championship every year since Mickey Harte took over in 2003 and every game was memorable, for better or worse.

One meeting would be chock full of exhilarating football, the next would be an intense slugfest. So it went. On and on. The good, the bad and the ugly in one convenient rivalry. Until last summer.

Cahill has featured in most chapters, having made his debut in the O’Byrne Cup in 2001 in Tommy Lyons’ first game in charge. He was there when Eoin Mulligan scored his wondergoal and when the Battle of Omagh erupted.

Few people can offer such an intimate appraisal of the All-Ireland champions.

“They are a very difficult team to play against. It’s just the way they’re set up. Defensively they drop a lot of players back so it’s hard to create space. Then they attack in droves. They have three or four defenders or midfielders coming at you in overlaps, so it is difficult.

“It’s not the type of team you play every week, even from a training point of view it’s very hard to practice against. Armagh were similar a couple of years ago but to win All-Irelands you’re going to have to come up with ways to deal with that.”

The Ulster side has been nothing if not consistent. Three All-Irelands in six seasons are testament to that but so too are the fundamentals of their approach described by Cahill and which have never altered.

“Mickey Harte put his stamp on the team straight away. They don’t change a huge amount even if they’re missing personnel. I see the way they just progressed when Peter Canavan and Steven O’Neill finished up with the squad.

“Steven O’Neill is back now but they have a system in place and 30 players well able to do it. I don’t think it makes a huge difference.”

Dublin are still searching for that symbiosis between system and personnel. New manager Pat Gilroy has begun the process by selecting Denis Bastick in the problematic full-back slot and employing last year’s incumbent Ross McConnell in midfield.

St Vincent’s Ger Brennan auditions for the number six shirt, Bryan Cullen has been reeled back in from the forwards and Alan Hubbard has been given his first start. It’s a new-look defensive unit and that will mean extra weight on Cahill’s shoulders.

“Definitely. As the years go on, you put more responsibility on yourself. The defence is one area we can improve on. Over the last few years we’ve got knocked out by the likes of Kerry and Tyrone and conceded high scores in the summer.”

David Henry will wear the armband today but Gilroy is rotating the captaincy for the league campaign and it would be some surprise if Cahill is not given the nod over the course of the coming months.

He performed the task in his younger days with the county U-21s and his stock among his peers is boosted not just by his eight years on the panel but by his selection as an Allstar for the 2007 season.

He was one of four Dublin players to be so honoured at the time but only one, Shane Ryan, got the nod 12 months later and the county they face tonight provided seven to the ‘Best of 2008’ selection.

Key men are missing on both sides but Dublin enter tonight’s contest cold, having rested their main panel from the January cup competitions while Tyrone and the rest of the counties were getting acquainted with the new disciplinary rules.

All in all, not an ideal run-in, a fact Cahill readily admits.

“We haven’t done a huge amount of training. We were over in La Manga and we got a lot of quality work done. There were players that the management wouldn’t have known so it was good but it’s still only January and you’re playing at Croke Park in front of 70 or 80,000 people.

“There is a lot of hype but it boils down to only two points at the start of the National League and it’s just a case of getting it up and running. If we can just concentrate on the performance, then the result will take care of itself.”