Cork tangled up in Blue as fans join the Dots

WHEN Dublin beat Cork in the final round of the Allianz Hurling League, there was a little group of the defeated supporters who joined the Dubs on the field in celebration of qualification for their first league final since 1946.

Star of the show for the visitors, you see, had been one of their own.

Dublin full-forward David ‘Dotsy’ O’Callaghan had tormented Eoin Cadogan from start to finish, had finished with a decisive six points from play and been voted man of the match.

Dotsy is a true blue, but his father is from Ballyhea and many of his family are rooted in the North Cork parish. Indeed his cousin, Pa, was on the Cork minor panel that played Limerick in the Munster MHC championship last night.

“I met them all after the match in Cork and in fairness to them, they were all very happy for us, that we had qualified for the league final,” said Dotsy yesterday. “I spoke briefly to Pa, he was waiting on a call to see if he’d made the minor panel, and he did. He’s still Under 16 so that’s good going.”

And ‘good going’ too sums up Dublin’s progression to Sunday’s decider, not just for the squad but for the growing base of fans of hurling in the capital.

O’Callaghan said: “There were a lot of die-hard Dublin hurling supporters on the pitch too (in Cork), and it was very satisfying to see their faces, it meant a lot to them. Reaching the league final is a great bonus for those supporters this early in the season. But for the players it’s just a matter of getting out there again now the next day and performing.”

It should never have come down to the Cork game, of course, and had Dublin taken half the scoring opportunities they had worked for themselves in earlier games — a loss to Galway, a draw with Tipperary — they would have been qualified much sooner.

“We probably would, but I don’t know what it was — we had a hell of a lot of wides in a couple of them. Even against Cork we had a lot of wides in the second half, but the main thing is we got there, eventually. We’ve shown our resilience this year. No matter what way the game was going, we kept plugging away and kept going for it.”

Such has been their form, in fact, that many people have now installed them as favourites to beat Kilkenny on Sunday, a situation that sits easily enough with the attacker.

“That’s okay — if people want to make us favourites, that’s just a sign of how far Dublin hurling has come in the last few years. But it’s all irrelevant to us. We’re delighted to be in a league final, a long time since Dublin got there, but it’s only another game. All year we’ve been focused on putting in a performance, in every game, and that’s what we’ll be doing again. Go out, maximise your performance, and see where that takes you.”

Such pragmatism is well advised, especially in light of who Dublin are playing, even more especially given how the footballers — also favoured beforehand — fared against Cork in the football league decider.

“That’s it, exactly. Kilkenny have shown their strength in depth again, they were the most comfortable team in the final round about getting to the league final. This Kilkenny team is littered with players who’ve been around the block, they’ve had all the success in recent years, they’ve done it all before. Cork had that kind of experience in the football final and in the last quarter, it showed — you have to try and keep the head for the full 70 minutes, and hopefully we’ll be able to do that.

“We’re not stupid, we know how good they are, but we’ll be looking to ourselves, trying to get the best out of ourselves, and if that’s good enough on the day, it’s good enough, if it’s not, we’ll look at things afterwards.”