Daly says Dubs don’t dwell on negatives

LEINSTER SHC SEMI-FINAL:

As they prepare for an All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny in Portlaoise tomorrow, are we being unfair bemoaning how Dublin seem to have gone backwards since what appeared a breakthrough year in 2011, a year they won a first national title since 1939 and were seen as Kilkenny’s closest challengers?

Manager Anthony Daly believes we are and very unfair at that.

“I don’t think there’s a whole pile wrong but that’s a matter of opinion, make up your own mind on that,” he said.

“If you think we’re gone from being All-Ireland contenders, that’s your own opinion. What I know is that at the start of this year we were in Division 1B. Our first target was to get out of that and we did.

“Our first championship game was against Wexford in Wexford Park. We negotiated that as well. We lost one game badly to Tipp [league semi-final], I can think of a couple of reasons for that. Other than that we’ve been very competitive against everybody.”

That Tipperary loss (4-20 to 0-17), coming as it did hot on the heels of a real dogfight win over Limerick in the Division 1B promotion decider, prompted the initial disparaging talk about a massive gap in standards between Division 1A and 1B. Then came the championship games against Wexford, a draw in Wexford Park followed by the eight-point win in Parnell Park, two games in which the standard of hurling was generally lambasted. Again, however, Anthony rejects the criticism.

“We were after beating Wexford in the Leinster championship,” he said.

“When I took the job first and we beat Wexford in Nowlan Park people went bananas. Overall I felt we had ten, 11, 12 strong performances. I’m sort of glad we didn’t win by another goal or more. There’d be an awful lot of lads out there who would be experts on the whole thing who would be saying ‘Yeah, that’s back to normal’.

“Now fellas are still questioning us which is good from our own point of view. All we can do this weekend is be the best we can be. Whatever has happened so far in the year, which is mostly positive from our point of view, is in the past. We’ll look forward now to having a crack off the best team that has ever played.”

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Daly is right and the armchair critics – such as myself – are wrong. Take the perceived gap between 1A and 1B. Was there a gap when Limerick beat Tipperary in Munster? Perhaps Limerick are the truer barometer as to where Dublin actually stand now.

Limerick went into that league final with serious intent, with a serious side and following serious preparation. Yet Dublin won.

Are we blinded by what happened last year? Having won the league in 2011 Dublin were relegated in 2012 but what of all the mitigating factors, the serious injuries to several big players and narrow losses in so many of those league games?

Then we came to the championship and the huge build-up to Dublin’s Leinster semi-final against Kilkenny in Portlaoise. The subsequent let-down (2-21 to 0-9) followed by a poor performance in a loss to Anthony’s native Clare in Ennis in the qualifiers.

What happened against Kilkenny that day happened and he’s still at a loss to explain it.

“I’m not going over last year, I’m sick of talking about it. You’ve asked me about it, everyone else has asked me about it.”

Pressed, however, he does elaborate.

“On the night we didn’t perform. That was the key thing. We had a bit of the ball at the start of the game, led three points to one, could have been further ahead. We lost Conal to injury [Keaney, 15 minutes] which was a bit of a blow.

“Kilkenny — as they do — got a goal, smelled blood and got a second fairly quickly afterwards. That killed it as a contest. They’ve done that to loads and loads of teams – Tipperary, Cork, Galway. They did it to us on the night and unfortunately it wasn’t a great night for us.

“That’s all in the history-books now. We can’t take back anything that happened in 2012, it counts for nothing. The longer you stay looking at that the more negative you become. I don’t do negative. I was disappointed alright immediately afterwards but 12 months later I’m totally looking forward to this.

“I played on a Clare team that lost by 18 points in a Munster final and ten months and two weeks later, beat the same opposition by four [Tipperary 1993/’94].

“You look forward all the time in sport, in hurling especially. Obviously we know that it will take an extra-special performance. We’ve prepared very well. I couldn’t ask for anything more from my players, an incredible effort in training, totally professional, making the sacrifices as do all inter-county teams.

“Hopefully now we can get out a big performance for ourselves not for anyone who might be talking about us or wondering about us. For ourselves we want to get out a good performance. It would be great if we did.”