The Kerry take on Dublin’s dilemma (by way of Tipp)

HAPPY days for the Dubs, then, right? Twenty-one points scored, an eight-point buffer at the final whistle and only one goal conceded after the five they leaked against Meath.

What’s not to like? Quite a lot, actually.

Not for the first time this summer, Dublin’s footballers walked off the Croke Park pitch leaving more questions than answers in their wake. Pat Gilroy’s radical makeover of the boys in blue remains a work in progress.

If anyone is in any doubt as to how far Dublin still have to go to rejoin football’s elite — and, in fairness, Gilroy isn’t one of them — then no better man than John Evans to put them straight.

Evan’s Tipperary side kicked off their summer facing Kerry in Semple Stadium and ended it with Saturday night’s qualifier defeat to Dublin. The first fixture ended in a 12-point defeat, the latter with an eight-point deficit.

Draw a straight line through the two ties and the simplistic conclusion is that Kerry are four points a better side than Dublin. Sure. If only it were that simple.

How far are they actually behind?

“A long way,” said Evans. “Kerry would have rattled them in the first half. I’m not being sympathetic to Dublin but I would say they will take another season. They’ll go a distance this year, but high workrate isn’t something that just happens.”

Not for a second did Evans believe Tipperary could beat Kerry in that Munster quarter-final in Thurles but Dublin were different. Dublin were vulnerable, he believed, and the hint of a famous victory flooded Evans’ thoughts last week.

The one thing he took out of Dublin’s first two games against Wexford and Meath was the lack of fight that they had shown but what he saw two days ago suggested that Gilroy was finally going down the right road.

“I thought we would see some cracks in Dublin if we went at them in the second half and at them we went. We got it back to a point, but they steadied. Some would say we made mistakes. Others would say that they fought hard.

“Dublin structured themselves well. Every time I looked up they had the extra man at the back and they worked hard for each other. For the first time out there I would say Dublin did work, and I’m not saying that to gloss up Tipperary.”

Gloss wasn’t a word that sprung to anyone’s mind during or after this second round qualifier and the paucity of entertainment, and structure, can only partially be explained by the incessant rain and slippery conditions.

Dublin adapted that bit better and Michael Dara MacAuley’s goal after 19 minutes gave them a six-point lead but an identical response from Barry Grogan two minutes later kickstarted Tipp’s best spell.

The gap was back to just the one with half an hour still to go before Tipperary ran out of steam and Dublin pulled away to a relatively comfortable victory but it was one that couldn’t disguise their shortcomings.

Gilroy’s tinkering continued with another five changes to the side for this latest outing and there is no doubt but that the team Tommy Lyons and Paul Caffrey built is quickly fading into memory.

Stephen Cluxton and Alan Brogan were the only starters who had featured on the Dublin vintage which had come within the width of a post of an All-Ireland final back in 2002. Veterans including captain David Henry, Barry Cahill, Conal Keaney, Tomas Quinn and Bryan Cullen have all found themselves benched at one point or another and Gilroy has declared his intention to continue making the big calls.

“This is to be fair to the panel. You play the guys who are putting it in and actually performing in the practice sessions. If you do that, then the practice sessions mean an awful lot more to people.

“That’s the way we have done it all along so the risk really was to not play them because they are the fellas who were doing it all along. When we sat down and discussed what we needed to improve for the Meath game, these were the guys that were doing the best.”

Of those parachuted in at the weekend, Michael Dara MacAuley was the obvious success story but there were thumbs up given for most of the other inductees as well, including Eoghan O’Gara and Kevin Nolan.

And still major questions remain. The full-back line is the only outfield unit to remain untouched this summer and yet it remains a youthful trio that betrayed its inexperience again on Saturday.

The ease with which Grogan lost full-back Rory O’Carroll for his goal was the best evidence of that but the simple fact is that Dublin remain acutely vulnerable at the back, especially when a team commits to running at them.

The rest of the side has been chopped and changed with abandon all summer with only a handful of regulars providing continuity and Gilroy needs to land on a settled 15 sooner rather than later.

“We were all dying to get back out there after the last day when we were punished severely for some silly mistakes. We were punished again. We stopped when they got a free and gave away a goal. It was only one today.

“We started the game very well. In the conditions that were in it, to notch up the score we did was pretty good but, again, I thought we conceded far too much. To go further in this championship we need to be conceding a lot less than that.”

That, at least, would be a start.

Scorers for Dublin: B Brogan (0-7, three frees); MD MacAuley (1-1); A Brogan (0-4); C Keaney (0-3, frees); R McConnell (0-2); S Cluxton (45), E O’Gara, K McManamon, E Fennell (0-1 each).

Scorers for Tipperary: B Grogan (1-5, five frees); C Sweeney (0-4, one free); P Austin (0-2), B Coen, S Hahessy (0-1 each).

Subs for Dublin: E Fennell for Flynn (35); C Keaney for McManamon, B Cullen for Corkery (56); P Casey for Nolan (69).

Subs for Tipperary: B Coen for Hahessy (29); B Mulvihill for Jones (47); K Mulryan for Acheson (56); A Rockett for Coghlan (65); E Kearney for Codd (71).