Nothing left to chance as Dubs refuse to play the percentages
FOR the point that put them five clear, completing a nine-point swing in just eight minutes of their All-Ireland semi-final replay win over Mayo three years ago, Dublin engineered a move that necklaced 32 passes between 12 different players to retain possession for over two minutes before finally, Philly McMahon got himself in sufficient space to pop a point and effectively kill a game that the last rites had already been delivered to.
Stretching from wing to wing, even bringing Stephen Cluxton into it a couple of times, Dublin worked their way calmly through the lines to release their adventurous corner-back in the right position.
They had all the time in the world, unlike a year earlier when, in the corresponding semi-final against Donegal, they played like a team ina race against time.
That loss to Donegal was their last championship defeat, four years ago yesterday, a lifetime in the evolution of this team.
That McMahon point was reflective of a more refined, controlled Dublin, the Dublin that Jim Gavin had hinted at when he addressed the Donegal defeat a few weeks afterwards, accepting personal responsibility for the vulnerability that their playing style exposed them to.
It was by no means the end of ‘100-milean-hour’ Dublin but the hazard lights were on much more frequently, the speed limiter button was pressed down and a reverse gear was found. Dublin were ready to make teams wait.
It’s interesting to look back on that semi-final now in the context of the panic that consumed Dublin when Ryan McHugh landed Donegal’s first goal in the run-up to half-time. And after the break how they repeatedly ran themselves into cul-de-sacs, making snap decisions that seem just so alien to them now.
Brian Fenton hadn’t yet arrived while Ciaran Kilkenny was recovering from a cruciate ligament – both men are hugely significant in today’s currency where chance and percentage has been largely removed from their game.
A look at the accompanying shot maps from that 2014 semi-final and their most recent championship game with Tyrone tells its own story.
Four years ago, against a side renowned for their willingness to sit deep in large numbers, Dublin were willing to shoot on sight. Venturing too deep into enemy territory was a risk too great, though Diarmuid Connolly twice held off multiple tacklers to score magnificent points from closer range.
From outside the 45-metre line in that game, Connolly kicked a point and a wide from much the same spot. Such an effort feels somewhat archaic now. Connolly is gone and Dublin have yet to take a shot from play from outside 45 metres in the 2018 championship.
Notably, just three of their 27 shots against Donegal in 2014 were taken from inside the 20-metre line, the two scored coming late on when the game was effectively over. By comparison, in Omagh in July, there were seven shots from within the same distance, five of which were scored, while two frees were also converted by Dean Rock. Without James McCarthy’s goal, that’s half of their scores within 20 metres of the Tyrone goal.
For Omagh, read Croke Park, Portlaoise or Nowlan Park in any of the 26 other games they have played in the championship since, or indeed their catalogue of league games.
Dublin have perfected the art, science, strategy – whatever you call it – of picking apart massed defences in cold, calculated fashion, using decoy runners and working towards eventually getting a player in the D who either turns and shoots or, with his back to goal gives it off to a runner outside looping around. If the shot is not on, no panic, they’ll recycle andgoagain.
It has meant a much closer shot range where either side of the D is their preferred launch area and the randomness of other years is removed.
Their patience to close out a game since 2014, across the duration of their four-ina-row bid – debunks some of the myth that they are chiefly a second-half team, spurred on by such impressive riches coming off the bench.
On balance, some of their best performances have come in the second half, the 2016 All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry and last year’s All-Ireland final against Mayo chief among them. But statistically, from the 27 games that they have remained unbeaten in since 2014, their first-half scoreboard superiority over opponents is greater than second-half superiority by a cumulative 25 points (27-259 to 5-169 first half v 24-257 v 12-162 second half ).
The perception is much different – that Dublin go to town on teams after the break, with more additional time and the best reserves in the business piling it on.
But in recent years that has become their time to control games after the initial bursts. Donegal in the first round of the All-Ireland quarter-final series was a prime example. Having led by four points at the break, Dublin were satisfied to manage it thereafter and see it out, increasing their advantage by just a point.
Their ratio of goals against opponents is in excess of five-to-one in the first half, easing to two-to-one in the second half.
In 54 halves of football across those 27 games they have trailed just twice at half- time (Mayo by a point in last year’s All-Ireland final, Kerry by five points in the 2016 semi-final) but have ‘lost’ four second halves (2016 drawn All-Ireland final against Mayo, 2015 All-Ireland final against Kerry, 2015 drawn All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo and 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final when Fermanagh ate into their interval lead by three points). This is the only season where they have ‘won’ every half.
The shift in scoring range over the last four years reflects the level of coaching and the individual skill levels that Dublin have to engineer these positions consistently without being caught.
They’ve perfected it so much, it disguises the risks involved.