Dublin’s wannabes make O’Byrne Cup a poisoned chalice for Westmeath
O’Byrne Cup offers a cruel dilemma for the likes of Westmeath as they run risk of a chastening defeat to Dublin’s wannabes
AFEW seasons back, a manager who had just seen his team given a chasing by Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup sought to take comfort where he could find it.
As he was leaving the ground after the game, a colleague, in an off-the-record conversation, enquired as to why he had not picked a stronger team to give his team a chance of beating the Dublin reserves.
‘God, the last thing I needed at this stage of the season was to have my first team beaten by their thirds,’ he fired back.
It is the dilemma which faces Jack Cooney and Westmeath as they eyeball Dublin’s development team in tonight’s O’Byrne Cup final at Parnell Park.
That a chasm exists between Dublin and the rest in Leinster hardly needs articulating, but despite its relative insignificance, the O’Byrne Cup has provided the most depressing measure of where the All-Ireland champions stand in relation to the rest of their province.
It is has all come at a price, hitting the Leinster Council where it hurts most. Their Championship gate receipts nosedived last year, falling from €2,634,837 in 2017 to €1,879,326 – a 30 per cent drop.
It is hardly a surprise, and it is not the only ugly number doing the rounds in Leinster football as the consequence of Dublin’s domination is coming home to roost.
In the last 10 seasons, Dublin have played fellow Leinster teams in competitive fixtures – League and Championship – 37 times and have won 36 of them.
The exception, of course, is that 11-point loss to Meath in the 2010 Leinster semi-final, but with every passing year that feels less like an outlier of a result and more of an outer body experience.
Westmeath hardly need telling of how brutal an experience it is to live under Dublin rule. Only Kildare have faced the Dubs more times in the last decade and, on each occasion, they have been left with the scorch marks to prove it. Westmeath have lost their seven games – five Championship and two League – by an aggregate of 135 points, an average just shy of 20 points a game. They have tried every way to avoid that outcome but nothing has worked. Under Tom Cribbin’s watch, they surprised the world by reaching a Leinster final in 2015, bunkered down behind a mass defence game plan and took a 13point trimming. They did the same 12 months later and kept the damage to 15 points, but when they were drawn against the champions for a third year running in 2017, the players rallied against the notion of going for damage limitation and demanded the right to express themselves against the best.
The price for staking their right to play came parcelled in a 31point mauling.
Nothing underlines the misery of paying rent in Dublin’s world more than the reality that the Leinster team who has fared best against them over the last decade is Offaly, and that is only because they were fortunate enough to avoid meeting them.
As miserable as that audit is, the O’Byrne Cup has taken the experience of playing Dublin to a whole new dispiriting level.
Two years ago, a Kildare team made up of so many familiar faces that January could have been been confused for June rolled up against a Dublin development team.
Niall Scully – and back then he was still only a player on the make – was the only recognisable name and they still ended up losing by two points.
What damage that did to the self-belief of those Kildare players was most likely incalculable.
Last week, Meath came to Parnell Park with at least half their first team and ended up losing – albeit through penalties – to a Dublin team that was only recognisable to anorak wearers and family members.
It might only be pre-season, but it took a sledgehammer to what was left of the notion that Dublin and Meath still engage as rivals, when the reality is that the latter have just become another punch bag.
And that is where Westmeath find themselves tonight, in the horns of a dilemma that is most likely going to end up leaving them gored.
On the one hand, this is the only Leinster competition they, or any of the rest, have a chance of winning.
But on the other, the risk of losing hardly makes the battle worth it.
Do you really risk putting your best foot forward and having it blown off by a Dublin landmine? Or do you just limp along to an inevitable defeat and take your comfort from not putting your dignity, and your strongest team, on the line by risking a defeat to a bunch of wannabes.
Comfort does not come served much colder than that.