Perhaps Gilroy was right all along...

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

THE EMERGENCE of a consistent and coherent Kildare gameplan in recent months has saved the Leinster championship from becoming a one-horse race. Regardless of whether they accomplish the magical fifth Leinster title in a row tomorrow, a solid grilling from Kildare could be the making of Dublin’s summer.

There have been discernible signs over the course of the championship so far that Dublin are starting to blend the best of the old regime with the best of the spring experiments, and there is a growing sense that Pat Gilroy’s charges are beginning to arrive at a way of playing the game that will be a lot more robust than previous models. That is why tomorrow’s provincial final against Kildare, their first since 2002 and the first real challenge to their pre-eminence within Leinster since the Meath examinations in 2007, is been viewed as critical to the ongoing development of the Gilroy era.