Stevie wonder
TRIBE PAY PENALTY AGAINST CLUXTON AND BOSS WALSH ADMITS DUBS ARE MILES AHEAD OF PACK
KEVIN WALSH admitted Dublin are out on their own after seeing his Galway side swept aside in the All-ireland semi-final.
Dublin are within touching distance of becoming only the fourth team in history - and first since 1981 - to win four-in-a-row after a routine victory in front of 54,716 at Croke Park.
Although Tyrone and Monaghan still have their own semi-final to contest today, the gulf between Dublin and the chasing pack has rarely been so pronounced.
“It looks that way at the minute,” said Galway boss
Walsh. “They are highly experienced.
“They probably get stronger as the summer goes on and they have a huge panel and they know each other inside out so it’s up to ourselves and everyone else to close the gap. “When we look at this at the end of the year, I keep talking about end of year accounts, we’ll look at ourselves to see if we have made progress or not, and if we can keep closing the gap on the tops teams, that’s what we have tried to do up to today.
“I just said to the boys there you never know who will be in the dressing room next year things change all the time so we’ll look at ourselves and see what we have achieved.”
Although he didn’t feel his players were flat on the back of the defeat to Monaghan, the short lead in to the semi-final may have been a factor.
Walsh added: “I suppose the likes of Dublin and Kerry, who would have been here regular, the transition of week-to-week I suppose is a bigger thing when a new team comes but at the same time no excuses, we don’t need to make excuses, it’s about experience.
“I think that dressing room is 24 or 25 on average age so if they want to, as a group, to push on they will have to experience these types of games and what was important we were competitive in the first half.
“If you were nine points down at half-time and the game was going on as a bore it would have been different.”
Dublin boss Jim Gavin (inset) was typically mundane in the aftermath of what was probably his side’s best display of the campaign. “I think we’ve had some really good displays in the summer so far,” he said.
“I’m happy with the team performance, not only the guys who finished the game for us but in the shadows there’s another cohort of players pushing hard, not even for game time, but to get on the panel so the culture and environment that the guys have prepared for themselves, it’s all about the team.
“They are but the sum of their parts and I know when we resume training next week that they’ll do their best for Dublin.”
Gavin was forced to replace key defender Cian O’sullivan in the first half and described his ailment as “a leg injury”.
“We’ll just let the medical protocols kick in and over the next 72 hours we’ll reassess.”