No point looking back in anger now
The source was likely nearby Dollymount Strand but it could so easily have emanated from the pitch such was the acerbic nature of the game. Fascinating in its guts and gore, this was car crash viewing. It won’t live long in the memory for the football it offered up but the ugly antics that threatened to erode it. Two tangoed, but Dublin led.
Diarmuid Connolly’s preparations for the replay will likely include a return to Croke Park midweek to sit in front of the Central Hearings Committee to contest his red card. He may be joined in one of the stadium’s boardrooms by Philly McMahon who pushed his head towards Aidan O’Shea in the second half. Stephen Cluxton could avoid punishment for a kick at the same Mayo player in the early stages. Mayo, too, may have some explaining to do for Rory O’Carroll’s black eye, which forced him off in just the fourth minute.
But it was the Connacht champions who came out of Croke Park looking and feeling like victims. Had they lost, they would have had a longer list of grievances than Limerick last year, which is saying something considering Cormac Reilly now tops Pat McEnaney on their ‘most wanted’ list.
As poor as they were - particularly in the forwards with just one of their starting attack scoring from play, and that in the 39th minute - there was something appropriate about them forcing a replay and Cluxton missing his injury-time free; their refusal to be the hard luck story once more indeed admirable. The dubious penalty awarded to Paul Flynn, Cluxton’s kick at O’Shea, McMahon’s Glasgow-tinged gesture to O’Shea, Cian O’Sullivan’s black card escape. It was quite the rap sheet.
Yet listening to the respective management afterwards, both were crying foul. Jim Gavin felt his loose theory about referees having it in for Dublin was justified by another free count reading against them. “We’ve accepted that that’s the case. One thing that we can’t control. We are practicing the art of tackling very hard in our sessions, we believe we are doing it the right way but it’s just one of those things that we are going through at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll come out on the right side of it.” Noel Connelly had been first out, speaking about the rough treatment of a couple of his forwards and once more beating the drum for main man O’Shea, who despite it all won three frees pointed by Cillian O’Connor.
“I don’t like going on about the way that Aido gets tackled at this time. Other players of smaller stature being marked as he is would be getting frees, in my mind. Every referee goes out to do his best and I am sure that Joe did his best overall. You know it’s something we brought to the attention of the linesman on a couple of occasions. It wasn’t just Aido. I thought Kevin McLoughlin got a tough time. Look it, this is senior football. We don’t expect to come here and be untouched, don’t get me wrong. Some of the jersey pulling to the ground was very obvious at times, I didn’t see as much action taken as I would have liked. We make it aware to the linesman and we were asking him to bring it to his attention, so whether or which it was or not, I can’t tell ya.”
For all their excessive amount of cynicism, Dublin couldn’t keep Mayo at bay to close out the game. Instead, they came perilously close to turning back the clock to 2006. Seven points up with seven minutes of normal time remaining, they surrendered the composure they had shown when dominating between the 57th and 61st minutes.
Paul Flynn, both in that period and beforehand, had been all that was excellent about Dublin. Dropping into a central pocket behind midfield, his accurate foot-passes were gobbled up gleefully by Bernard Brogan, Peadar Andrews and Ciaran Kilkenny and turned into scores.
He also provided an extra body at the back as much as almost all of Mayo’s gains via Cillian O’Connor frees in the first half came through the middle. James McCarthy conceded three frees pointed by O’Connor. Michael Fitzsimons, Cian O’Sullivan and McMahon were also guilty of handing O’Connor deadball opportunities.
Indiscipline was costing them a tidy sum at that stage before it turned into a fortune by the end but it was Cluxton who had the chance, a la 2011, to see off Mayo. With Dean Rock having become the 12th player in Gavin’s 16 championship games to make way at half-time, it was left to the captain who hadn’t kicked a free or 45 all summer to come up with the goods. Like his two other frees earlier in the half, his strike was off-target.
Cluxton’s account will remain forever deep in the black but there were splodges of red in his ledger yesterday. Dispossessed by Andy Moran in the 65th minute, his blushes were saved by John Small. Some of his kick-outs in that vital closing period, particularly the one after the goal that precipitated Moran’s equalising point, were feasted on by Mayo who could count Diarmuid O’Connor among their best performers.
The comeback for Mayo #DUBvMAY @officialgaa #replay pic.twitter.com/ZLQ3BG6xok
— Lynsey Kiely (@lynseykiely) August 30, 2015
Much like their posturing for the replay referee, both Gavin and Connelly claimed to have the edge ahead of five days’ time; Gavin dismissing Mayo’s experience of going at it twice with Kerry last year and agreeing his team should be favourites. “Ah, teams don’t look back to 12 months ago. We’re always looking forward. We’re already putting plans in place and looking forward to next Saturday.”
Connelly reckoned: “The boys in the dressing room are very upbeat at the way they came back. But I don’t think anyone has an advantage at this stage.”
Maybe Tyrone do. With a firm alibi, they’re not the ones reeking. Not this time.
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