The Dublin juggernaut rumbles on
Watching on from the stand, Westmeath boss Tom Cribben must surely have gulped hard watching Kildare became the latest casualty to fall under the big blue juggernaut.
What awaits Westmeath on Sunday week will surely be as terrifyingly emphatic.
Coasting to a third consecutive Leinster final under Jim Gavin, a fifth including Pat Gilroy’s final two years, Dublin’s average margin of victory under their current boss has jumped to 16 points.
Domination has hardly ever been so, well, dominant.
Two years ago, the magnitude of Dublin’s double-digit win over Kildare was startling. It was only in 2011 that a disputed Bernard Brogan free separated the sides. But there was nothing surprising by this gulf in class. It was expected and it was delivered.
Dublin’s finishers will pick up the lion’s share of the plaudits but this was the team’s eighth clean sheet in 11 games across league and championship this year. Combined, they have conceded just four goals, two of them coming in that one-sided Division 1 final win over Cork.
Bernard Brogan and Diarmuid Connolly each claimed a brace of goals, both adding their seconds in the final 10 minutes by which stage Kildare could have been forgiven for thinking ahead to the consolation of a qualifier against Offaly on Saturday.
Jason Ryan wasn’t as fatalistic as Jack Sheedy was in setting up Longford in the quarter-final but he certainly didn’t structure his team with a mind to containing Dublin with a rearguard battalion.
“At certain stages during the game we thought we had the bus parked,” he reflected. “That’s the reality. I’d say if we had snapshots of the first and second halves there were quite a few Kildare players inside the 45-metre line.
“We would have aimed to have two, maybe three forwards inside in the Dublin half for as much of the game as we possibly could so that still gives us 11 players in a defensive position, 12 including the goalkeeper.
“There was a lot of that game when Dublin scored and we had those players inside our 45. In the first half, our ability to deal with the runs of Ciarán Kilkenny who kicked a few great scores coming off different angles and different positions wasn’t as good as we needed to be.”
Kilkenny was terrific in the first half, all four of his points marvellous efforts. The goals came from Dean Rock, Brogan and Connolly in that order. Rock’s ninth minute score came as a result of a Philly McMahon kick-pass to him not being cut out. Brogan was then alert to a ball that broke off Rock in the 13th minute to smash past the goal-line although in doing so it crashed against the head of Connolly.
Dublin had the game in the palm of their hand by that early stage and it was 18 minutes between Kildare scoring the second and third points. In that space, Dublin managed 2-4 without reply. Connolly’s goal in additional time made it 3-10 to 0-6 at the break
The second half was pedestrian for periods as Dublin were only too happy to welcome Kildare onto them and then break at speed. Jim Gavin also rang the changes as he introduced Alan Brogan, who scored three points although he might have set up goal chances with two of them, and James McCarthy, who had a goal-bound shot saved by Mark Donnellan in the 47th minute.
Kildare and Dublin players became involved in some off-the-ball skirmishes which David Coldrick reacted to with a series of double yellow cards although it appeared the frustration was all Kildare’s. As if their day couldn’t get much worse, it did in the 64th minute when Donnellan was black carded for a trip on Rock, which Connolly punished in the form of a penalty goal, before Bernard Brogan bagged his second goal four minutes later.
“I thought it was an all-round good performance,” said Gavin of his side’s efforts. “There was very good industry, great work-rate throughout the team, we held our discipline throughout and to get 4-14 from play was pleasing. Overall, a good day at the office but we prepared very diligently for it over the past four weeks and we knew we had to turn up to get a performance.
“To that end that objective has been achieved and we’re delighted to get through to a Leinster final. It means a lot to us and we’ll go hard at it now for the next couple of weeks.”
Cribben and Westmeath won’t need any reminding.
B Brogan, D Connolly (1-0 pen) (2-3 each); D Rock (1-4, 0-4 frees); C Kilkenny (0-4); A Brogan (0-3); P McMahon (0-1).
E O’Flaherty (0-4, 2 frees); P Fogarty (0-3, 1 45); P O’Neill (0-2); E Bolton, C McNally, P Cribbin, A Smith, N Kelly (0-1 each).
S Cluxton; P McMahon, J Cooper, R O'Carroll; J Small, C O'Sullivan, J McCaffrey; B Fenton, MD Macauley; P Flynn, K McManamon, C Kilkenny; D Rock, D Connolly, B Brogan.
J McCarthy for J Small (inj), A Brogan for K McManamon (both 43); M Fitzsimons for R O’Carroll, P Andrews for P Flynn (both 58); E Ó Conghaile for B Fenton (63); D Daly for C O’Sullivan (64).
M Donnellan; O Lyons, M O'Grady, C Fitzpatrick; K Murnaghan, E Doyle, E Bolton; G White, P Cribbin; P O'Neill, E O'Flaherty, C McNally; A Smith, P Fogarty, E Callaghan.
D Hyland for O Lyons (11); T Moolick for G White, N Kelly for E Callaghan (both 47); H Lynch for C McNally (55); C Heeney for M Donnellan (black, 63); F Dowling for E Bolton (66).
D Coldrick (Meath)
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
