DEFIANT DUBLIN FIND THEIR WAY
Gavin masterstroke turns tide as Mayo go down fighting
THE end here had the feel of the very beginning. It’s deep into injury-time and in a game which Dublin looked set to lose coming down the home straight, referee Joe McQuillan calls a free after Chris Barrett fouls Diarmuid Connolly.
The only difference is that where Stephen Cluxton stood back in 2011, that space 40-odd metres out is now occupied by Dean Rock but the end result is the same.
In that moment, a championship flips and time bends it knee to affirm that this is Dublin’s best ever team, and now one of the greatest ever as they became the first team in 31 years to win three All-Ireland senior football titles in a row.
It is their fifth title in seven years and it not only followed the narrative of that breakthrough win in 2011, it went along the same lines as all the others — four of their five final wins have been one-point wins, while the other, Kerry in 2015, was a three-point squeeze.
Put it like that if you are miserly of spirit, and you could argue that they are a lucky team as well as a great one, but the fact that they always find a way when pressed to the very limit is a testament to their greatness.
Mayo, when their grief eventually lifts, will acknowledge that too because their icy comfort here is there is very little more they could have done.
On the balance of play over 70plus minutes, they were arguably the team who showed the greater intensity and played the better football but it still was not enough in a contest of tight margins.
In the end, their passion play bowed to the pre-game consensus that Dublin’s depth would be decisive and so it proved.
And the beauty about Jim Gavin’s Harlem Globetrotter bench is that when the need was at its greatest here, it revealed itself to be something far more than a decorative piece of furniture.
Ultimately it proved the winning of a game that Dublin were chasing for long periods.
At half-time, the champions were in all kinds of bother, even though the scoreboard failed to articulate their distress, trailing by just a single point (0-9 to 1-5).
But that did not explain that Dublin had made the perfect start — Con O’Callaghan stealing a march on Colm Boyle to slip in the opening goal inside two minutes — but for the rest of the half they were hopelessly out-played, out-thought and out-fought.
Mayo got so much right from the off, not least the decision to start Lee Keegan on Ciarán Kilkenny, whose influence yesterday was minimal.
Aidan O’Shea and Tom Parsons were dominant in the middle of the field, which went some way to explaining why Stephen Cluxton saw six of his restarts turned over, three of which converted into Mayo points.
Meanwhile, Andy Moran — who moved a step closer to Player of the Year yesterday with three first-half points and Jason Doherty — the latter’s fingerprints were to be found on five Mayo points — were rampant in attack. That made that one-point lead look miserly and they would pay dearly for that.
Gavin effectively won this game at half-time, conceding defeat that his pre-match gamble in starting Eoghan O’Gara had not worked, and sending in Kevin McManamon and Connolly.
It would prove transformative, not just in what they contributed, but the big benefactor was Paul Mannion, who thrived when moving onto Brendan Harrison, scoring three points and setting up another.
It changed the mood of this game as did the growing influence of James McCarthy, who took advantage of a tiring O’Shea, while Rock sniped with such purpose that he would finish with four points from play.
But Mayo’s regret is that when a door opened for them in the 48th minute when John Small’s frontal hit on Colm Boyle saw him receive a second yellow, Donal Vaughan walked straight into it rather than through it. His retaliation meant he saw red and that sucked air out of Mayo, but still they had enough to push ahead again though Lee Keegan’s 52nd-minute goal to lead (1-12 to 1-11).
From there it ebbed and flowed and when Cillian O’Connor, who endured a mixed day with the boot, kicked a goal to put them two points in front (1-15 to 1-13) with seven minutes left, it was there for them.
But it was not to be; Dublin’s response was a heady cocktail of defiance and brilliance, underlined by Diarmuid Connolly’s pass that released Rock for a lead point with three minutes left.
O’Connor would find an equaliser but it would not be enough.
Dublin would not be denied. As it was at the beginning, so it shall continue.