Those hammering Dubs’ tactics don’t understand sport
TO listen to the boos ring out from the Donegal support as Dublin played keep-ball towards the end of their Super 8s opener at Croke Park, it was as if a collective amnesia had descended.
In the RTÉ commentary box, Ger Canning and Dessie Dolan channelled the sense of outrage that was permeating around the ground, calling out the All-Ireland champions for their behaviour, as if it was somehow against the spirit of the game and that they had a ‘duty’ to play a certain way. All that was missing was a face in the crowd hanging onto a placard saying, ‘Down with this sort of thing’.
As a counterpoint, those in support of Jim Gavin’s team started a rolling wave of ‘olés’, the official sound that a match is over as a contest, the vocal equivalent of a Mexican wave.
Feeding into the same critical narrative on the night was the indignation at Dublin mirroring Donegal and putting bodies behind a ball, sometimes the entire 15.
It’s almost as if they are trying to win the All-Ireland for the fourth year in a row. Clearly, history is bunk. If you don’t understand why Dublin put men behind the ball or run down the clock, then you don’t understand Gaelic football. Or sport.
For those Donegal supporters raging against the blue machine, Croke Park was an irony-free zone.
LET’S rewind to the last Sunday in August, 2011. Donegal manager Jim McGuinness gathered his players in a huddle ahead of an All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin and said that he was putting his phone in a bag for the day and hoped everyone involved and attached to the squad did the same. Like a commando unit disabling any technological device and going dark as they prepare to drop behind enemy lines. Why? Because a terrible beauty was about to be born: a blanket defensive system involving every outfield player, bar lone ranger Colm McFadden.
The game’s preeminent goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton could have his kick-outs. Donegal were going full McGuinness. Alan Brogan was just one of those Dublin players who later conveyed the full sense of shellshock, the 2011 Footballer of the Year admitting that Dublin heads were scrambled by the extent of the Ulster champions’ superbly-drilled defensive operation.
Without the ball, Donegal were like a turtle, retracting all limbs and tender parts and leaving only an impenetrable hard shell exposed (see McGee brothers, Neil and Eamon).
Coming up to half-time, in protestation at Donegal’s refusal to accept Gaelic football’s usual terms of engagement, the boos rained in from Dublin fans around the ground. Yes, boos.
That was the first of the steep learning curves that shaped this Dublin team, the second being the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final. Witness another tactical masterclass from McGuinness when an offensive-minded Jim Gavin team left huge holes at the back to be exploited and this time, Donegal pulled off the coup of the Championship.
It was a lesson in minding the house that Gavin quickly learned. His team haven’t lost a Championship match since and are chasing a four-in-a-row. The two are not unconnected.
The irony of Dublin being criticised for their set-up or for running down the clock against Donegal when the same county has brought them to this very point seems to have escaped many.
It’s as if everyone else wants them to behave like its 2014 — and be beaten accordingly. Which is merely peddling a delusion.
The idea of the onus being on a team that is ahead, that is actually winning in a game, to push up or not try to keep possession is plain barmy. It fails to grasp what competitive sport is about.
What is the point of having a lead if it doesn’t bestow you a competitive advantage? If it doesn’t challenge your opponent to come out from a defensive shell and expose a limb?
Ciarán Kilkenny would be just as entitled to put his foot on the ball and issue a ‘come and get it plea’ as run around playing lateral or backward passes. The reason? To entice Donegal to commit more bodies up the field to make it easier for Dublin to hit on the counter.
Whether Donegal were just out of gas and hadn’t the energy for a full-pitch press, or hadn’t the bravery to push up and try and win the game, or felt the game was lost and that it made more sense to conserve bodies for a season-defining round two game in the Super 8s against Roscommon at Dr Hyde Park this Saturday, only they can say.
Meanwhile, Dublin head to Omagh to face Tyrone who will make no apologies about putting 14 or 15 players behind the ball. It’s as if Mickey Harte has taken a poster from the 2011 semi-final and pinned it to his wall.
After last year’s semi-final, the idea that an ultra-defensive, counter-attacking game plan à la Tyrone or Fermanagh or Carlow was out of fashion represented a woolly type of wish fulfilment from those who prefer to see the game played a certain way.
This one won’t be played fast and loose. It will be cagey, and tactical, and more akin to a game of bluff.
Nothing surer than there will be defensive set-ups and plenty of keep-ball.
Harte has three senior All-Irelands beside his name. Gavin has four. They understand a thing or two about winning.
And why Gaelic football has evolved to this point.