DUBLIN NOT AS FAR IN FRONT AS WE THOUGHT
A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME?: Derry players celebrate with the silverware after beating the Dubs on penalties in the League final years ago with an awesome display against Meath side Trim.
It’s a similar tale with Conor Glass, Ciaran McFaul, Ethan Doherty and the Glen players.
They are now senior All-Ireland winners at Croke Park, with the previous year’s All-Ireland semi-final victory over Moycullen at GAA HQ an underrated experience they had to draw on.
Derry now have players with the muscle memory of getting the job done at Croke Park on the biggest days in what was previously a house of pain for the county.
Shedding that fear of failure and expecting to perform and win every time you hit Jones’ Road is a big thing.
The stuff Dublin and Kerry players have a bank of.
Had Derry lost on penalties after failing to close it out, it could have done untold psychological damage to a group on the rise and potentially on the cusp of something bigger than back to
back Ulster titles.
Many in Derry feel the walloping they took from Dublin in the 2014 League final, when the game was over after 20 minutes, was the beginning of their slide into mediocrity — and then obscurity.
Infamous
It prompted their ultra-defensive set-up for the infamous 0-8 to 0-4 Croke Park defeat by Dublin the following year.
Derry were so afraid of the home side that they put everyone behind the ball in what was a shocking spectacle akin to the 0-8 0-6 Dublin/Donegal All-Ireland semi-final in 2011.
That’s the fear Dublin at Croke Park can strike into teams and the psychological damage they are capable of inflicting if they open up on you. It’s also why last weekend was such a big psychological win for Derry.
The same Jarlath Burns who heaped praise on Derry’s rise to prominence in a widely acclaimed speech, which has set a standard for his reign as
GAA president, took to
Twitter after the
8-4 game to declare the death of Gaelic football.
Jim Gavin was the Dublin manager that day. Paddy Tally the Derry trainer under Brian McIver.
Jim Gavin is in charge of the Football Review Committee that Burns set up to have a look at the game. There didn’t appear to be too much wrong with it last Sunday.
It’s funny how the wheel turns though. Derry need one more huge push of that
IT LOOKS LIKE WE’LL HAVE A CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER ALL
Having lost their first two League games by a point, Dublin proceeded to win the next five by an average of close to 10 points and without a swathe of recognised frontline players too.
It gave rise to fears that another era of merciless Dubs domination was about to take off but having been bettered by Derry for the most part of the League final, it appears that they won’t have it all their own way this summer after all.
“The narrative that had developed externally around the team, we knew it was not a true reflection of what was going on and that today was going to be a proper examination,” said Dubs boss Dessie Farrell.
SHOOTOUT SHOULDN’T MASK DERRY SHORTCOMINGS
There was so much to admire about how Derry went about their business in the League final and they underlined that they are a team of real substance and frontline All-Ireland contenders. But, while they’ll take many positives from the game, the reality is that, like last year’s All-Ireland semifinal against Kerry, they failed to finish off opposition that was vulnerable for much of the game.
Credit to Dublin for hanging in, of course, but Derry lacked a ruthlessness which will be required if they are to win games at the back end of the Championship.
They need to develop it.
DOWN FLATTER TO DECEIVE AGAIN
The Division Three final on Saturday evening was a poor quality spectacle, though there was no doubting that Westmeath were
TALKING POINTS
deserved victors.
Down boss Conor Laverty lamented the fact that his team didn’t play to the standard that they had previously in the competition, which now leaves their hopes of playing in the All-Ireland series dangling.
It’s the 12th final in succession that Down lost since the 1994 AllIreland and though the current team can’t be saddled with all of that, they did lose last year’s Tailteann Cup final when, again, the form guide coming into it suggested that it was theirs to lose.
DIVISION FOUR FINAL
Leitrim’s participation in a competitive fixture at senior level at Croke Park for the just the sixth time ever meant that the Division Four final carried far more romance than any other over the weekend.
But after goalkeeper Nevin O’Donnell’s brilliant point from play brought Leitrim to within two points on 47 minutes, they failed to score again as Laois ran out easy winners.
The eventual 14-point margin was the largest since Division Four finals were introduced in 2008.
JARLATH BURNS’ SPEECH
A GAA president’s ability to find the right words, and names, when presenting a trophy shouldn’t really set him apart but there had been so many cringeworthy episodes throughout Larry McCarthy’s tenure that the quality of Jarlath Burns’ speech and, indeed, how he delivered it ahead of passing the cup over to Conor Glass on Sunday resonated with people more than would usually have been the case.
His presidency will be judged by more weighty matters than this, but at least one core fundamental is firmly in place.