New faces have freshened us up, says Dubs captain Henry

DUBLIN captain David Henry believes the uncertainty over the county’s starting 15 will help rather than hinder attempts to retain their Leinster title and make deeper inroads towards September.

Speculation as to Pat Gilroy’s first championship line-up, which will face Wexford in Sunday’s provincial quarter-final, has been rampant in the capital but few clues have been forthcoming.

Plans to announce a summer panel were shelved two weeks ago due to a number of injuries – a situation which has carried over from the recent league campaign.

The net result was a regular player turnover in Division One and there are personnel questions remaining on b every line of the pitch apart from Stephen Cluxton who will definitely start between the posts.

All will be revealed tomorrow morning when Gilroy names the side for Sunday’s doubleheader at Croke Park in which Meath and Laois will get proceedings underway at 2pm.

“You don’t know how it’s going to work and you’d hope that we’d get the balance right and that it will work well,” said Henry. “But the new faces have freshened things up and, although there might be a little bit of uncertainty, that freshness is good as well.”

Balance is a word that is very much to the forefront of Henry’s mind in recent weeks as there are more than just personnel issues being debated in the run-up to their latest championship assault.

Despite their injury woes, Dublin very nearly qualified for a first NFL final in 11 years and they managed that while experimenting with a new, less swashbuckling and carefree style of play. “Well, we had to do something,” Henry replied half-jokingly.

“Defensively, we haven’t been good enough over the last couple of years – all over the pitch, you’re not just talking about your six backs. You’re talking about the 15 people on the pitch. So, we had to focus a bit on that during the league and we did that. Sometimes in the league, though, our forwards were left very isolated when we did that. So you’d hope that with a bit of improvement in fitness levels and with a faster ball come the championship that might improve too. You won’t win anything unless you go out and put the scores on the board either.

“So we’d be just hoping to get the balance right.”

It will probably be some comfort to the players, management and supporters alike then that their best display in Division One came in that last round defeat of Tyrone in Omagh eight weeks ago.

The Dubs hit Tyrone for 2-10 in a whirlwind first-half that day – all but one point coming from play – and it was a fitting venue for such a peak given the fact that Henry believes the Ulster side’s playing template is the one to follow. “They’ve been the masters at it. When they defend they defend well and when they attack they always support each other well. Whereas there were times in the league we were attacking and you couldn’t see where the support was coming from because there were big gaps there.”

Next Sunday will tell a truer tale. For both counties.

Wexford endured an horrendous year in 2009 after their heroics in reaching an All-Ireland semi-final the summer before, but they steadied the ship with a solid if unspectacular campaign in Division Three.

How they fare in the championship remains to be seen. The same applies for a Dublin side chasing a sixth straight provincial title but one that is also looking to purge memories of last August’s hammering by Kerry.

“It’s hard to know,’’ Henry said of Wexford. “Two years ago they had a great year, which we all know, so last year was going to be always a difficult year for them. They were never going to reach those heights again.

“So this year, I suppose, Jason Ryan will be probably looking for more consistency, that things will be a bit more solid and that’s what you’ll have to expect from them.

“They do have some excellent players, one or two of them playing up in Dublin, in college or for one or two clubs. So we’re aware of them and,certainly, we’ve nothing to be over-confident about. We’re just trying to get into Croke Park and find out how good we are because we’ve been left, the last couple of years, wondering. We wouldn’t like to think we’re as bad as the Kerry game or whatever, yet we’re still not sure.”