DUBS’ DOMINANCE THREATENED BY AGEING ATTACK
DUBLIN may look an unstoppable force, but they are also a team that is dying of old age up front. They may never need to be stopped by some other team. They will probably come to a
stop all by themselves. The lifespan of most great teams amounts to three or four All-Ireland titles – and with a hat-trick already recorded just one more winter with Sam Maguire may be Dublin’s lot.
It almost certainly will be unless some magnificent young striking talent comes forward.
At the moment Dublin look old on the field, and bare on the bench. Where are the hot shots? Who, apart from the brilliant Ciarán Kilkenny, has grasped one of the famous blue jerseys and made it his own?
There’s nobody stepping forward, and Paul Mannion, Tomás Brady and Cormac Costelloe remain ‘bit’ players who have not done enough over the last two or three years to earn a starting spot.
So, Jim Gavin has 32-year-old Bernard Brogan leading the charge as ever in the scoring charts. But Brogan can’t go on forever, and when he stops who is going to become the team’s No.1 genius? There is also the danger that by the time Borgan retires from the game most of Dublin’s present starting forwards will be tempted to join him in the stand for good.
Paul Flynn and Eoghan O’Gara are both 30, Diarmuid Connolly and Kevin McManamon are both 29, Paddy Andrews is 28.
The only new ‘kid’ who has made a breakthrough and become a first-choice forward in the last 12 months is Dean Rock, and he’s already turned 26.
For all of the money that has come the way of the Dublin football team in more recent times, and for all the great fear being expressed that they have become far too strong as a football force, there is no real evidence that they are going to remain football’s ‘top dog’ indefinitely.
Great forwards make great teams. Only great forwards can do that, and all the money in the world as well as the fanciest and most advanced of training facilities can’t replace genuine genius in putting the ball between the posts.
Outside of their bunch of old forwards whose careers are slowly dying there is no sign of another Brogan, Connolly or Flynn coming along to become the team’s talisman.
It might not end tomorrow against Kerry for this Dublin team, but it will end sooner than most people think.
All the money in the world can’t replace genuine genius