'Flat' Dublin avoid Kildare shock to advance to Leinster decider

BLUE BOYS: Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton comes to claim the ball. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Dublin 0-14 Kildare 0-12 

Uninspired, fitful, cumbersome. Tired, even? These are not words that we associated with the Dubs. Dessie Farrell labelled their efforts in this Leinster semi-final as ‘flat’ and that fit equally well after his side came desperately close to what would have been a seismic loss.

First, off, the context.

Dublin are chasing a 13th straight provincial senior title. They had won 37 Leinster Championship games on the trot before this. Kildare hadn’t beaten them since the 2000 provincial final replay and lost the last six meetings by an average of over 13 points.

No-one driving up the M7 on Sunday expected much. Rumblings of discontent have been heard in Kildare for much of the year, Glenn Ryan touched on them after the final whistle. TV wasn’t interested in showing it live and no one was making a thing of that.

This was the sort of game Dublin have been winning in their sleep for over a decade and when Stephen Cluxton was named to start and make a first appearance since the 2020 All-Ireland final, it seemed to be that we had our headline written before throw-in.

The 41-year did fine. He made a good but expected save from a Jack Robinson breakaway shot in the third minute, kicked a ‘45’ wide and did what he does with his kickouts. Everything else was anything but routine for the holders.

Kildare didn’t trail once until six minutes from the end of normal time and they held a lead for 26 uninterrupted minutes that spread either side of the interval. This was the polar opposite of last year’s Leinster final when Dublin eviscerated them and claimed five goals.

Dublin instead hit at least 15 shots wide or short against a Kildare side that challenged them with 15 men inside their own ‘45’ and did enough going forward themselves to keep their noses in front, mostly thanks to dead balls from Paddy Woodgate and Jack Robinson.

Up by four points with just under a half-hour to go, the workload and maybe the mental strain began to tell. Kildare managed just two points from there on in, Dublin finding the target eight times in the same spell to just about get over the line.

Dessie Farrell refused to call it a scare, pointing to the two league games these counties played in the last 15 or so months, with each edging a win apiece, and he offered the theory that games of this nature will benefit them down the line.

In fairness, this is a better barometer than the hammering of Laois the week before.

“Yeah, 100%, because it definitely grounds players who may need grounding - and I'm not saying they do - but it brings everything back to earth with a bang and the reality is that that's the type of game you're going to encounter when you move on.” 

Farrell made an interesting observation afterwards when he spoke about the value that returning stars such as Cluxton, Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion can bring to a dressing-room that has welcomed 22 new faces in the last two seasons.

Mannion matched the three points he claimed against Laois with as many again before suffering cramp and coming off. McCaffrey’s impetus made a clear difference to their attack from deep when he came on at half-time. Two major positives.

Their ability to wrestle control down the stretch shouldn’t be discounted against a Kildare side that brought in players of the calibre of Kevin Feely, Daniel Flynn and Paul Cribbin but this inevitably asks questions micro and macro about the Dubs beyond Leinster.

Can future opponents keep Con O’Callaghan as quiet as Kildare managed here? Have enough of those new faces made near enough of an impression to push this project back to the heights? Maybe Louth can tease out some answers in the Leinster decider.

Dublin had seven points to spare when the sides met in the last round of the Allianz League but there were clear signs of disjointedness and a tendency to kick wides that day that would have been grounds for prosecution under Jim Gavin’s watch.

This next game is the kind that Mickey Harte would have targeted and talked about when he took over in Louth and, as Farrell pointed out, they will bring a similarly defensive platform to the occasion come throw-in on Sunday week.

“Louth probably have been working on that the last couple of seasons and they have definitely added a real threat in terms of an attacking dimension as well,” said Farrell, “but I didn’t see much of their game (against Offaly).

“I saw some minutes here and there, and some extra-time, but they definitely look to have a potency up front that may have been lacking in the game when we played them here a few weeks back. Sam Mulroy has obviously been added to the starting line-up there and will offer them that.”

Scorers for Dublin: P Mannion (0-3); C O’Callaghan (0-2, 0-1 free); L Gannon, C Murphy, R McGarry, S Bugler, C Kilkenny, C Basquel, J McCaffrey (all 0-1); C Costello (0-1 free).

Scorers for Kildare: P Woodgate (0-4, 0-2 frees, 0-1 ‘45’); J Robinson (0-3 frees); B McCormack and D Kirwan (both 0-2); N Flynn (0-1).

Dublin: S Cluxton; D Newcombe, D Byrne, L Gannon; J Small, C Murphy, T Lahiff; B Fenton, S Bugler, C Kilkenny; P Mannion, C O’Callaghan, C Basquel.

Subs: C Costello for McGarry and J McCaffrey for Lahiff (both HT); L O’Dell for Basquel (50); P Small for Mannion (58); D Rock for Bugler (65).

Kildare: M Donnellan: E Doyle, S Ryan, M O’Grady; D Hyland, K Flynn, J Sargent; K O’Callaghan, A Masterson; P McDermott, B McCormack, A Beirne; J Robinson, D Kirwan, P Woodgate.

Subs: P Cribbin for Beirne (46); N Flynn for Robinson (49); D Flynn for Kirwan (56); K Feely for Masterson (63); J Hyland for McCormack (69).

Referee: F Kelly (Longford).