Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DEAN KNEW THAT HIS EVER-PRESENT RUN HAD TO END
DEAN Rock’s hunger for games meant when the inevitable happened he was still disappointed.
Rock had been an ever-present for Dublin from the league final win over Derry four years ago to the dead rubber game in the Super Eights against Roscommon.
With a semi-final to come a week later, it was no surprise that Jim Gavin (below) left his top scorer out.
But it still hurt Rock to be taken aside and told he wasn’t playing, even if his instincts told him it was coming.
“Yeah, 63 in a row I think, it’s gone now,” smiled Rock. “It’s starting from scratch now. Ah, I suppose that was eventually always going to go at some stage.
“You get a sense from a player’s perspective that, you know, we had already qualified at that stage and we were guaranteed first place so it was the logical and sensible thing to do. You have a gut feeling yourself.
“It was nice that it lasted for that long. Then it was great for the squad to be able to get game time in the Championship in Croke Park and it’s served us really well.
“Guys are brimming with confidence and very much feel a part of it. That can only be good for us.”
Rock, 28, understood it would be good for him to sit out the Roscommon game.
However the fourtime All-ireland winner isn’t wired to accept sitting out any fixture for Dublin in the summer.
His first came as a starter against Wexford in 2014, but he was hauled off at half-time and had to accept a bench role for the remainder of that campaign. “Naturally you’re very disappointed because you feel like your doing alright,” he recalled.
“You’re still involved but you’re just not starting. You weren’t where you wanted to be at that stage yet, but thankfully it turned around in 2015, and it was all good then.”
One of the first names on Gavin’s team-sheet, Rock has been a part of the Blues’ evolution from the swashbuckling side of a few years ago to the more possession-based side we are witnessing now.
But Rock insists the game plan remains a simple and effective one.
“We just want to go out and score as much as we possibly can,” stressed the Ballymun Kickhams star.
“We play an open game of football where we want to kick the ball as fast as we can and get the ball up as quickly as we can to guys that can shoot. “It’s great as a forward line that defenders and midfielders and the goalkeeper are trying to get the ball up to you as quickly as possible and then it’s up to you to execute and get the ball over the bar.
“Certainly it’s still as enjoyable as it’s always been for us – just that different teams pose different challenges at times.”