Dubs won’t put blanket defence to bed

ANY number of reasons have been bandied about for Dublin’s disastrous performance against Wexford last Sunday but Rory O’Carroll would like to out one theory to bed. Literally.

Though Pat Gilroy’s side recovered from a disastrous first 50 minutes to pull clear of their unheralded opponents in extra-time, former midfielder Ciaran Whelan was one of many past players to dissect their initial troubles.

One of Whelan’s main bones of contention was the decision to billet the players in the Regency Hotel, which is situated five minutes away from Croke Park, the night before their Leinster quarter-final.

Whelan claimed that spending the night prior to games in their own beds had always been an advantage for Dublin sides in the past.

O’Carroll was happy to debunk that line of reasoning: “I don’t mind staying in a hotel,” said the young full-back with a smile. “Usually it’s nicer than my own bed. We played loads of league games away, so it wasn’t really a problem. A load of other people seem to think it was, but there was no talk in the team about it whatsoever.”

The post mortem has run a lot deeper than mere sleeping arrangements this week. Gilroy’s decision to rip up the blueprint that had delivered five successive Leinster titles has come in for close scrutiny.

The concept of a blanket defence and swift counter-attacking broke down completely last weekend with the Dubs conceding a raft of converted frees and their front men enduring an awful day in front of the posts.

One of the explanations put forward was the side’s youth and experience. Five men made debuts. Others, like O’Carroll, had limited experience of the senior championship and Croke Park.

The sheer size of HQ’s surface cannot be discounted. Many a side has found that game plans which worked well in smaller provincial grounds failed to stand up under the spotlight in the GAA’s flagship stadium.

“Yeah, it’s a much bigger pitch and we’re going to have to work on that again. We’re going to have to gradually improve throughout the championship. We can’t just scrap it now and start a new one.”

So, there you have it. Gilroy and the Dubs won’t be abandoning a system which delivered their best league campaign in ten years and ended with a seemingly seminal defeat of Tyrone in Omagh.

O’Carroll was quick to offer Wexford a sizeable percentage of the credit for Dublin’s woes while adding that there were always going to be teething problems in their opening championship outing.

“We were terrible as well, so it’s kind of a combination of both. There were a few challenge matches actually before that didn’t go well at all. We were hammered by Cork and then we lost to Cavan.

“Then we didn’t play too well against Antrim and we got beaten by Mayo as well. We didn’t really have a good run. So, we weren’t expecting a huge performance from ourselves but we weren’t expecting to be as bad as we were.”

If there is one line of the pitch which has escaped criticism this week it is actually the inexperienced full-back unit which O’Carroll anchored and one which was perceived as a glaring weak spot.

Gilroy singled out right-corner back Michael Fitzsimons as one of the few to distinguish himself last Sunday. Philip McMahon made up the triumvirate that went into the game with just one championship appearance between them.

“The whole defensive unit and the whole team, you can’t just pinpoint the criticism at one or two people or one or two lines of defence. You can’t escape but at the same time all of our men did get scores.

“We weren’t out in front as much as we should have been,” O’Carroll pointed out, “and we did give away frees. I’m not saying we deserved more criticism but we did kind of escaped, I suppose.”

Gilroy has little time with which to fashion the major improvement that is so evidently required. The winners of next Saturday’s replay between Meath and Laois are next on the agenda on June 27.