Dubs brace for Tribal warfare

THEY ensured the league ended in a blaze of colour but it is the championship arena where the progress of the Dublin hurlers will be properly gauged.

The first hurdle was surmounted against Offaly in Croke Park last month but they’ll travel down the M6 to Tullamore next Saturday evening aware that the stakes are set to be raised considerably when John McIntyre’s Galway team lie in wait. The struggles that the Tribesmen experienced against Westmeath will carry little weight this weekend, according to Dublin player Alan McCrabbe.

“The league was a bonus but we’re going to have to up that an awful lot going into the Galway game. We know Galway are biting at the bit to get at us and knock us down from the league final. So it’s down to us to get a performance. Everyone was saying would they win by 25 or 30 points against Westmeath. But we knew that Westmeath would give them a game and we wouldn’t take too much out of it. They knew they were going into a battle and weren’t going to get things handy. Against us, they’ll probably have a different team with a totally different setup. You had the likes of Joe Canning there sitting on the bench. This will be our biggest challenge.”

Dublin will be aiming to utilise the improved weapons in their armoury against Galway. The physicality of their team has been enhanced this year and that was best illustrated when they blitzed Kilkenny in the second half of the league final last month.

“A couple of years ago we weren’t as physical as we are now. The last two years has been upped an awful lot, that we have to get physical. You do have to try to hunt Kilkenny down in packs, that’s the only way to stop them and you need to stop their half-back line delivering ball. We were in their face every minute of that day and they probably weren’t used to it. I suppose when they did start getting a bit dirty at that stage they were eight or nine points down, but it’s hard when you’re winning so much and you’re not used to losing. We knew we had the physicality and speed in the team, and just used what we had to our advantage.”

The display of Dublin’s half-forward line was a key facet in their success with the addition of Conal Keaney and Ryan O’Dwyer, serving as major boosts this season.

“The main thing now as well is that we have a good half-forward line that can catch ball,” says McCrabbe.

“With Conal and Ryan Dwyer coming into the team and Conor McCormack, there’s three big lads that are well able to look after themselves. That surprise is gone with Conal and Ryan, but I suppose that was gone after two games in the league. Teams would know about them an awful lot now.

“Conal’s done an awful lot of good work for the team. The lads talking about him before he came back were saying he’s a savage man to win ball and a great man to win the dirty ball. You’ve seen that.

“He has that physical edge that he had with the footballers. I think a lot of players are after picking up a lot of tips from him, and we’re starting to use them ourselves.”