Irish Daily Mail

KENNY BRINGS BELIEF

BOSS CAN INSPIRE DUBS

- By MICHEAL CLIFFORD

ON the back of their success, Dublin’s Blue Wave, launched at the beginning of this decade, has become a book of prophecies.

The headline promise of one football All-Ireland every three years has been revealed to be a gross under-estimation of their true worth, ensuring in the process that the strategic document has been upgraded to a blueprint.

However, it has one gaping hole which Mattie Kenny will become the latest candidate to try and plug. In that same document, Dublin also set the bar high for their hurlers, with a target of one Liam MacCarthy Cup success every five years.

Under Anthony Daly, in 2011 Dublin won a first National League title in 62 years, and two years later, a first Leinster SHC in 55 years. It looked then as though their plan would be realised.

It failed to materialis­e and where all that Dublin promise went is one of hurling’s unanswered questions. The truth, however, may be found in the managerial changes within the county following Daly’s departure in 2014 after six years at the helm.

Mattie Kenny will be the third man to sit in the Dublin dug-out since, and the transition in leadership has been reflected in an ever-changing dressing room.

‘We are starting again and I don’t know how many times we can start again, because we have been doing that since I was there and that was 15 years ago,’ said former manager Humphrey Kelleher yesterday.

With Pat Gilroy’s shock departure after 12 months, the option facing the Dublin County Board was to upgrade Anthony Cunningham — Kenny’s former boss with Galway — to the number one slot, but instead they turned to the Tynagh-Abbey-Duniry clubman.

In the process, they sacrificed continuity for a manager with proven and current form; Kenny’s delivery of back-to-back AllIreland club titles with Cuala was unpreceden­ted in Dublin’s history.

In truth, he may well have got this job 12 months ago, but perhaps Cuala’s defence of their provincial and Leinster crowns might have been viewed as a distractio­n by the Dublin board at the time.

If that is the case, his appointmen­t 12 months on carries one obvious benefit to the county. It is inevitable that he will be seen as the best placed to ensure that key Cuala players, such as the Schuttes, Mark and Paul, Darragh O’Connell, Colm Cronin — the latter was unavailabl­e this year because of travel — and Sean Moran, could become high calibre additions.

His appointmen­t may even prompt some speculatio­n about a dual role for Con O’Callaghan, but that is likely to be little more than wishful thinking.

However, even if he is successful in replenishi­ng Dublin with those players, it hardly equates to a guarantee of success.

‘You can’t be fooled by believing if you get those Cuala players back that is going to be the critical difference,’ argued Kelleher.

‘We cannot just lean on the belief that Mattie is going to get back players and because of that we are going to get success.’

That is evidenced by the season just past, when Gilroy’s appointmen­t facilitate­d the return of several who had become disaffecte­d under Ger Cunningham’s three-year reign.

But Dublin’s failure this time was accompanie­d by flickers of hope. They may not have beaten a serious team in the Championsh­ip since the 2016 win against Wexford, but in pushing the Model County and Kilkenny hard this summer, they also showed they are not detached from the game’s chasing pack.

‘Mattie has proved himself to be a thoughtful, insightful manager and has got the best out of an average club team in Dublin to win two All-Irelands,’ said Kelleher.

However, given the miracle of Cuala, he clearly has an ability to get players to believe anything is possible, something this team badly needs.

‘We are a county of nearly men, but we need to start looking at the Liam MacCarthy now, and certainly the Bob O’Keeffe [Cup],’ said Kelleher. ‘That is the standard we should be looking at and players have to decide, do they want to play for Dublin or do they want to win for Dublin’

Kenny is the best placed man right now to coax the right response from the squad.

 ??  ?? In charge: Mattie Kenny with Con O’Callaghan SPORTSFILE
In charge: Mattie Kenny with Con O’Callaghan SPORTSFILE

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