Teary Daly hails Dubs’ character

CONSIDERING the past couple of days, never mind yesterday’s achievement, it was understandable Anthony Daly was a little emotional afterwards.

After Conal Keaney’s motorbike accident, after the disaster that was last year’s qualifier defeat by Antrim, here was the breakthrough.

Sure, the Division One final win over Kilkenny, a national title, was an accomplishment but qualification for an All-Ireland semi-final was real progress.

“They’re good lads,” he choked with teary eyes. “The first thing you look for in any team or sportsman is character. And these lads have buckets of character. How would you work with lads unless they were oozing with that — they have loads of that character.”

His team’s performance in victory said it all. Even without Keaney, they managed to score three goals, all from the returning Ryan O’Dwyer.

“He was outstanding,” said Daly. “He stepped up to the plate. You were all telling us we couldn’t get goals but in fairness he was outstanding. But everybody played their part. Ryan wouldn’t have been through probably only for the boys that set him up a couple of times, especially the third one when Dotsy (O’Callaghan) cut inside. It’s a team effort but he (O’Dwyer) had a great game.”

Daly wasn’t going to disguise the fact Dublin were fortunate on occasions, namely in the second half as they shot wides with abandon.

“It mightn’t have been a classic, the quality mightn’t have been savage. It was a dour struggle.

“Once Limerick brought (Graham) Mulcahy back they seemed to get a grip on it and we had to try and counter that a couple of times. Alan (McCrabbe) just ran out of gas, he did a huge amount of running in the first half and obviously Brian Geary was replaced so he had done his job. We rode our luck a bit but we missed a few and they missed a few as well. Them days are just there and you ride your luck a bit. We worked really hard all year so we’re not apologising to anyone for getting the luck.”

According to Daly, nobody will give Dublin a chance now against a Tipperary, a team the Clarecastle man refers to as “a machine“.

But he agrees his side will play with a lot of freedom given they have nothing to lose.

“There’d be an element of that. They looked like a machine the last day and even against Clare. They seem to be able to go through the gears unbelievably.

“We’d be under no illusions and we’re going to have to come up with some sort of a system… I’ll be on the blower to Davy (Fitzgerald). And to Sparrow (Ger O’Loughlin),” he joked.

As for last night, Dublin were planning to toast their win. “We’ll have a creamy one and then get back tomorrow and try to come up with something to try to stop this machine we’re all witnessing.

“Everyone is eyeing up a big two final, but we’ll do our best to have something to say about it.”