Tomas Quinn: Setting summer goals far easier than taking them

As May turns to June we have seen the first few weeks of championship football with provincial championships throwing up a mixed bag of competitiveness and quality.

With every county having either played or now on the last countdown to the start of their campaign we know all 32 teams are engaged in a similar practice, setting goals for where they want this summer to take them.

Setting goals is easy, but actually achieving those goals is a different story. You can set a goal, you can imagine yourself achieving that goal in the future, but the steps to actually reaching achievement can often be long and challenging.

Teams should be ambitious with their goals but also realistic. The trick is understanding the relationship between short and long term objectives.

Longford entered yesterday’s game as 17 point underdogs with the bookmakers. Since the final whistle of their victory over Offaly in Tullamore their only thoughts have been on Dublin. Or were they? And if they were, should they have been? You will always hear managers say they are never looking past the next game but while that may be the public message it would be negligent of them if it were true in terms of their internal planning process.

As the last of the crowd filtered out of Croke Park yesterday, Jack Sheedy gathered his Longford players and management team in a huddle close to midfield on the Croke Park pitch. Moments after teams lose when tensions and emotions can be high is often the wrong time for feedback but in this instance with the result in no doubt from the early stages of the game I’m sure the managers words were more thought out and practical than reactionary.

The message will have been that they need to forget about this game, put it behind them and look to move on in the qualifiers.

There is no shame for Longford being beaten by this Dublin team but the manner of the defeat will be the sticking point for their group. If Longford had performed close to their optimum and still lost heavily they would be able to take positives. Sadly that was not the case.

Trying match Dublin man on man in a shootout was a strange tactic and one which will certainly be reviewed and debated in the days ahead.

Everyone knows Dublin’s long term targets have moved on from provincial level but Jim Gavin and his squad still place huge emphasis on delivering performances from the very start of the championship.

Often in these games the Dublin players are not necessarily competing with their direct opponents but in a different competition with the other players in the Dublin squad to hold onto that starting jersey. David Byrne, Darren Daly and John Small all got opportunities to start in the Dublin defence yesterday but with the likes of Rory O’Carroll, James McCarthy and Cian O’Sullivan all likely to return in the coming weeks those players yesterday knew they had an opportunity to perform for 70 minutes irrespective of whether the game was over as a contest long before that.

Jim Gavin has said before Dublin look at the hedge in front of them and not over it, his players performed like they believe the same yesterday but it’s hard not to get the feeling Dublin are balancing their short terms goals with a long term one that they hope will see them playing football in late September.