Tomás Ó Sé
On why Mayo are far from finished, Diarmuid Connolly’s mysterious Dublin absence and the epidemic of cynical fouling sweeping the game
1 LEINSTER’S WEAKNESS
KILDARE, the great white hope if you’ll pardon the pun, lost seven out of seven in Division 1, leaking huge scores along the way.
Then look at the rest of Leinster. Meath just about hanging onto Division 2 status, Louth joining Longford, Westmeath and Offaly in Division 3, Wexford swapping places with Laois and Carlow in Division 4.
So what can we expect of the Leinster Championship? Nothing. The pick of them all put together wouldn’t beat Dublin.
Kildare and Meath should be coursing the Dubs. But they’re miles off where they need to be. Kildare, particularly, frustrate me. They’ve a lot more talent than their results suggest.
But they’ve fallen into this habit of losing. Psychologically, they struggle to get over the line in tight games, losing in this league to Monaghan by a point, Tyrone by a point, Donegal by two. That’s a bad sign. It tells me that they don’t know how to win.
People keep saying I’m very hard on Kildare. But they’re serial underachievers. They can’t seem to toughen up psychologically. They need a long, hard look in the mirror.
2 TACTICAL FOULING
SUDDENLY we have an epidemic of this curse, in imitation of what Dublin did to defend the winning point in last year’s All-Ireland final. That was the first time I saw this being done in such a systematic way – and it worked for the Dubs.
When a game is on the line, the quick kick-out just isn’t an option now. You’ll see seven or eight players grabbing their men to make sure they can’t be a target for the goalkeeper.
What does a referee do? Just look at Mayo immediately after Kevin McLoughlin kicked that equaliser against Donegal in Ballybofey on Sunday.
Eoghan Bán Gallagher was clearly man-handled. What was he supposed to do? Just stand and shrug his shoulders or try to wrestle himself free? Next thing, he’s grappling on the ground with his marker and the two of them get yellow cards.
Good luck to Mayo, I don’t blame them for doing it.
Look at Ciarán Kilkenny any time Dublin get a score. He comes out and slams really aggressively into his marker. Is that crossing the line? I don’t think so. Manhandling a fella to the ground is a foul but, if seven or eight people are doing it as one, what’s a referee going to do? Hand out eight black cards?
Kerry and Galway were both doing it in Tralee. It’s as if an instruction goes out that you must do whatever you have to do to make sure the opposition can’t go short.
Something has to be done about it because it won’t be going away. A serious deterrent needs to be found that goes some way towards eradicating it. Maybe something like awarding a free down the far end of the field.
Inter-county teams will look for any advantage, and kick-outs have become incredibly important. Bottom line, everybody saw that the Dubs didn’t concede that last kick-out against Mayo. And, not unreasonably, they asked, ‘Well if they can get away with it, why not us?’
3 MAYO’S TOUGHNESS
THEY’RE still in Division 1 and they keep proving themselves one serious group to defy the odds. I’ve given up doubting them. It’s hard to predict what the summer might hold for the them. But I take my hat off to them for their sheer, bloody-minded hardness.
And they’ve unearthed a few players in this league, like Eoin O’Donoghue and Caolan Crowe, while Conor Loftus has progressed from cameo star to contending for starts. I know three of them are defenders, but there’s definitely a stiffening of the squad strength.
We keep writing Mayo off and they keep proving us wrong. But it’s always edge-of-the-seat stuff.
They remind me of a movie character being chased by baddies who jumps into a car and just gets it started as they’re reaching for the door handle. Next thing, it’s all screeching tyres and he lives for another day.
Mayo are a special group and it strikes me their whole year could take shape from the Connacht Championship meeting with Galway.
Losing Lee Keegan is a massive blow, but I wouldn’t put it past them to win that game in Castlebar and make it all the way to September again. There’s serious stuff in them and I just don’t buy this line that they’re gone over the hill. The core group that everybody harps on about being old can still perform.
But lose to Galway and I’m just not sure they can navigate their way to an All-Ireland final through a back-door route, down which both Derry and Cork should have beaten them last year. It’s a huge game for them. Can they win it without Keegan?
The way they got that draw against Donegal, I’d put nothing past them.
4 TYRONE’S EVOLUTION
I THINK Mickey Harte spends too much time fixating on how other people regard Tyrone. If people think your system is too defensive, should it really matter if you’re getting the results you want?
Tyrone scored 7-93 in this league, winning their last three games by margins of six, 12 and six points. They made mincemeat of the opposition in Ulster last summer. They have serious scoring potential, no question.
But they basically played a 1-13-1 formation against Dublin last year and got eaten alive. I think they’re well capable of beating anybody else, but the Dubs ate them without salt. Lee Brennan has been scoring freely in this league, so he’s a good addition to an already decent forward line.
But, in my opinion, Tyrone need to commit three good forwards to attack, two inside, the other maybe on the ’45. They have exceptional ball players and ball-carriers, but I wonder how scarred they have been left by that shocking nonperformance against Dublin last August.
Tyrone have been dominant in Ulster, but do they see themselves as genuine All-Ireland contenders? They beat Kerry well the last day, and I know Kerry would like to think they’ll have a say at the business end of the season.
Maybe Tyrone just need to believe in themselves more.
5 DUBLIN WITHOUT CONNOLLY
I DON’T pretend to know what’s going on with Diarmuid Connolly, but all the signs suggest there’s something wrong somewhere.
He got so little game-time last summer, you’d have thought Dublin would have been extrakeen to have him on the field in this league. But he’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve marked the guy and he has this edge about him that endears him to the Dublin supporters. There’s an element of the Eric Cantona about him, the f lawed genius.
I love watching Connolly because he can do anything he wants on the field. His balance is extraordinary.
But Dublin don’t need him. That’s the incredible thing about them. People made a big deal of them losing to Monaghan the last day, but look at who they were missing – Cluxton, O’Sullivan, Cooper, Kilkenny, Andrews, Mannion, McCaffrey, Brogan and, of course, Connolly.
But they’re still hugely competitive, still finding nuggets like young Brian Howard. Their squad strength is unbelievable.
Look at the different priorities of the so-called big guns in this league. Mayo? Just trying to survive. Kerry? Trying out the young fellas. Dublin? Just rolling through and, largely, winning games with whoever they had available.
They’ll take a little break after tomorrow’s final to get their freshness back for championship.
It’s something they can afford to do, given the paucity of threat in Leinster. So nobody will be down on bended knee now trying to get Connolly back. But it’s a shame for the rest of us if we don’t see him this summer. A shame for the game itself.
6 THE IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEMS
IT’S NOT my favourite word, but it strikes me that so many teams are openly struggling with the way they’re being asked to play. Basically, you need a system you’re comfortable with to go man on man and, similarly, you need one you’re comfortable with to play against a packed defence.
Dublin apart, Mayo are the only team I’ve seen in the last few years who can comfortably play both. Kerry and Tyrone are still struggling. Your system of play can often be the difference in close games.
Look at Division 1. I’d question the systems being used by three of the bottom four, excepting Mayo.
Kerry, Donegal and Kildare seem to me to want to play the way Dublin play, man on man. But they struggle then when they come up against a defensive system like Galway’s or Tyrone’s.
Put it this way, once Donegal got their defensive system right against Mayo last weekend, their 15 minutes coming up to half-time was outstanding.
That’s how Declan Bonner should aim to have them playing, in my opinion. They have a good enough balance of players if they get their system right.
Yet, they’ve been relegated. Why? They were completely naive at the back against Kerry in the opening round.
And speaking of Kerry, I don’t think they punch enough holes. They can look very lateral in their play. Paul Murphy is a key attacking threat but, against Galway, he was doing a manmarking job in the full-back line.
I was impressed with how Monaghan took on Dublin last Sunday. They weren’t afraid to go long against them and they weren’t afraid to run at them.
You’ve then got to be able to change things up against the Galways and Tyrones. But most teams won’t go long because they’re afraid to lose possession. So the skill of kicking properly isn’t taught anymore, not even at underage.
A disgrace.
7 THE CHASING PACK
IS THERE one? You have one team who are miles better than everybody else. Then you have Mayo, Kerry, Tyrone and possibly Monaghan at the next level. Below that? Maybe Donegal and Galway.
The real excitement in this league has been Carlow’s story and a few different plot-lines lower down in the divisions.
To me, there’s a very strong case to be made to just merge the league and championship. I’m genuinely looking forward to the championship as it stands, but up to 60pc of the games played will probably be shocking.
I’m looking forward to the Mayo-Galway game already, but beyond that?
We’ll get nothing in Leinster. We might get a good Munster semi-final between Cork and Tipperary. Ulster will throw up a few tight games.
At the end of it all, I’m convinced we’ll still have the same main players. And Dublin out in front again.
8 COACHING STANDARDS
LORD God, I had some people jumping down my throat on Sunday night over my suggestion on RTÉ that Liam Kearns might get a crack at the Kerry job somewhere down the line.
As if I was trying, somehow, to undermine Eamonn Fitzmaurice. Can I say this categorically– I back Fitzmaurice 100pc. I was talking about further down the line. A long way further down the line.
The point I was making is simply that the likes of Tipperary under Kearns, Clare under Colm Collins, Cavan under Mattie McGleenan and Carlow under Turlough O’Brien (below) look really well coached. And I mentioned Kearns specifically because, when he was in charge of Limerick, he put Kerry to the pin of our collars when we should have been comfortable. Tipp will fully expect to beat Cork in this year’s Munster Championship and probably feel they should have gone up to Division 1 in this league. That’s phenomenal given the focus on hurling in the county.
Imagine what they might do if the likes of Noel and John McGrath were available to Kearns?
Tipp scored 12 goals in Division 2. They carry an outstanding attacking threat. But they’ve shown too that they can vary their game. They can go direct or they can carry.
The likes of Tipp and Clare know they’re not going to get the support their hurlers get, but they are two teams worth watching. Super Eight football is well within their grasp.
9 DERRY DECLINE
THERE’S something wrong about Derry dropping into Division 4. Derry football is consistently strong at club and colleges level, but it seems a lot of their better players simply don’t want to play senior inter-county.
The county board has to be asked a few stark questions. If nobody wants to play for your county team, then you’re doing something radically wrong. This is a county, remember, that contested the 2014 National League final. They’ve been in freefall since.
Managing the Derry footballers has become a poisoned chalice. Everyone seems to be pulling in different directions.
That’s the county board’s responsibility. They need to be held accountable.
10 PROSPECTS FOR TOMORROW’S FINAL
I’M expecting an ultra-defensive set-up from Galway. And you know something? Dublin won’t care. They’ll have the patience to work a way around it, be it in over their heads or around the sides.
I suspect the game will highlight again how teams need to be able to play a couple of ways.
I’ve really been impressed by Galway’s attitude in this league. They’ve found a hard edge. This is a team that was cut right open too often in recent times, and Kevin Walsh recognised that something had to be done.
Suddenly, they’re a hugely aggressive, in-your-face team. The Paddy Tally influence is obvious. But I felt they retreated too far against Dublin in round six, albeit they’ll have been well satisfied to get a draw that day.
Galway have serious pace in attack and I believe they can remain solid at the back even if leaving three attackers up top.
The flip side of that is, I suspect, the Dubs have the potential to rip any team apart. So I think Walsh’s aim will be to keep it a low-scoring