Climbing Capital Hill

A Dublin footballer faces special pressures, and will continue to do so until they get the monkey off their back.

DON’T think you can avoid it.

You can’t.

Don’t think you won’t pick up the newspaper.

You will.

Don’t try and convince yourself you won’t watch The Sunday Game.

You will.

Resistance is futile. You live in a city. You can’t be a hermit. You are a Dub and everybody wants something of you. You’re a story. Inside Dublin, people place crazy expectations on you. Outside it, you’re the one team everyone wants to see beaten. It will always be this way.

But what you can do is dismiss it. Hear the man who tells you your team is shite, that ye are a team of chokers. Be polite, thank him for his comments and then walk away. Don’t listen to him. Hear the man who tells you your team is great and ye’ll be All-Ireland champions. Be polite, thank him for his comments and then walk away. Don’t listen to him.

Most of ye will hear it in your workplace. Being a Dub, talking about being a Dub, contributes to your living. That fact won’t escape you and you can’t escape it. Embrace it.

But you must only listen to yourself. Ye are the only people who know where you stand. Nobody is more of an expert about you than you. Forget that and you forget yourselves.

PAUL CLARKE’s advice to the Dublin players was simple — ignorance is bliss. That’s not to say the former selector’s pearl of wisdom was easy to follow. In the goldfish bowl that is the capital, nothing ever is.

But he insists it’s the only way to keep sane. “I always told the lads to ignore whatever was said about them, no matter what it was. If you listen to people telling you your team chokes, you’ll believe it. If you listen to people who tell you your team’s name is already on Sam, you start cutting corners.

“It’s a difficult thing to do but it’s the nature of the beast in Dublin.”

Clarke looks back on the four consecutive Leinster titles (2005-8) he won working alongside Paul Caffrey as conquests which might have propelled hype but were at least achievements in themselves.

Pat Gilroy added a fifth Delaney Cup in 2009 but Clarke believes the script was ripped up last year. Erroneously so.

“Pat has been very vocal as to what he would like to win. He had no great worries about losing Leinster last year. He planned to have enough gas in the tank for the All-Ireland series but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.

“In hindsight, had they won Leinster they would have had an easier run to the All-Ireland semi-finals and a date with Down. But then that’s the beauty of hindsight, isn’t it?”

The hysteria generated about Dublin’s “wall” defence during this year’s league amused Clarke. He knows its genesis was in the county’s run to the All-Ireland semi-final last year but he couldn’t believe some of the plaudits paid to the management’s tactical acumen coming up to the semi-final against Cork.

“We didn’t have the amount of talent Pat has now but we had a definite style. When fellas were taken off, they knew why. When fellas were selected, they knew why.

“We didn’t understand or believe in the zonal defence. This idea of corner-forwards going back to defend... fellas should do that naturally. If your man is gone up the field, track him. There’s no science in that, just common sense.

“That was supposed to be zonal defence in the league and yet the team conceded 21 points to Cork. The defence was supposed to be a wall but the system seemed to hit a wall.”

He doesn’t want to sound like a told-you-soer but he wasn’t particularly astounded by Dublin’s unbeaten run to the Division 1 final.

Neither does he believe Pat Gilroy has taken the right approach in dropping players like Paddy Andrews, Pat Burke and Alan Hubbard.

“I would have been as excited about the league performances as other people. The team was still conceding a lot. There was got some great balance through the spine in Diarmuid Connolly, Kevin McManamon and Barry Cahill but some of the results were flattering.

“In the week leading up to the final, I was hearing different things about certain fellas in training. Some were struggling with form and injury and as we saw they had to come off in the final. The management knew this was going to happen and were looking at back-ups. The players they brought on were showing form in training and were the immediate choices.

“It mightn’t have happened for them on the pitch that day but a number of them are what I would call good county footballers. They are the best that is out there. When I heard some of them were dropped off the panel, I couldn’t believe it.”

Clarke isn’t writing off Dublin’s All-Ireland chances based on the collapse to Cork. Irrespective of the nature of the result, he feels they have more work to do. But his abiding belief is they will cut through the bull and win an All-Ireland.

“They’re still going to be there or thereabouts. They’ll frighten the majority of teams and beat one of the big teams again. Whether they can go all the way this year I don’t know but I believe this group will win an All-Ireland. My reason for that is we had to go through the mill for 1995 and the lads are going through something similar now.

“Dublin have to win things the hard way. Nothing is ever going to come easy to them because of how they’re viewed by other teams and through the media.

“We suffered defeats in big games but we stuck at it. I’ve a big belief the lads are learning from them as we did.”