Tomás Ó Sé: Reshuffle to swing it for Dubs
His defence must change to avoid being cut open by Kerry’s classy forwards, but if Gavin gets the calls right and his men play like they can, they’ll take their place among the immortals – though only just
YOU WOULD think, as we stand on the brink of football history, that the topic of conversation this week might be what’s going to happen on the pitch today: the greatest Dublin team ever just got shackled in most areas by Kerry, yet their rivals couldn’t put them to the sword.
So many talking points, yet all I keep hearing: “What’s going on with Joe Brolly?”
It’s the question I’ve been asked time and again, and before we get into the game itself I may as well offer the same answer here as I have all week: If I could figure out Joe Brolly I’d be a wise man. I’m not, but I love Joe and if he’s overshadowing an All-Ireland final in all media outlets he’s doing something right. He and David Gough have hijacked the build-up to both finals and I can only laugh: they’re two good men.
Spotlight
Jim Gavin and Peter Keane could do worse than sort Joe out with tickets because he’s taken the spotlight completely off the two managers.
Speaking of refs, during the week I called over to Dr Con Murphy and we got chatting about the situation that wasn’t actually a situation at all in the first match. He reminded me that far worse than anything this year was when they got a Kerryman – Tommy Sugrue – to ref the 1988 All-Ireland final between Cork and Meath. I wasn’t long volleying back that Conor Lane reffing a Dublin-Kerry match was not what Kerry fellas dreamt of at the start of the year either. We had a right laugh about it but, all jokes aside, I see no reason Lane will be an issue.
Anyway, to the game: the talk has been that Dublin left the first match behind them, that most of their players didn’t perform to what they normally do. Maybe they didn’t, but don’t underestimate the opposition. This was by far the best team Dublin faced this year: Kerry were tactically and physically a long way ahead of anything else they met.
A Kerry footballer playing with confidence in Croke Park is an ignorant animal to deal with. They were a step ahead of the champions in a lot of areas Dublin see themselves as strong and, defensively, Kerry had their best display of the year.
Jim Gavin knows the talent he has and this situation won’t be new to them, but when you’re accused of not performing, that there might be a few cracks in your once-invincible facade and people start to say you’re rattled, you’re going to react.
Great players, great teams, react with their answers on the field and Gavin will also have to react with strong decisions on the sideline. The last game was not his finest hour.
Dublin’s defence as a whole needs to improve. Outside of Jack McCaffrey, who was outstanding the last day, this was not the confident, hard-to-penetrate defence we had come to expect, the monster that gobbles up everything that comes its way. Dublin were carved open a good few times and if that happens today then Sam may be headed to the Kingdom. Kerry are more than capable of stretching that defence if things don’t improve.
First question for Gavin: does he put protection in front of Paul Geaney and David Clifford? Do you play Cian O’Sullivan or Jonny Cooper as a sweeper?
I don’t think they will use a sweeper because the six Kerry forwards will engage Dublin’s six backs and push up. If Dublin have a sweeper, Kerry will try to hurt them by using the spare man, but I wouldn’t be shocked either to see Gavin go with it. Niall Scully and Brian Howard might also drop a lot deeper to give their defence more protection.
Everyone is looking at Dublin’s full-back line but I think the core issue for Gavin is further out the field: he’ll be asking his middle eight to work harder to slow the running game Kerry have with their quick, direct ball. On the flip side, if Kerry don’t speed up their game a little to counter that I think they could be in trouble. That’s what makes this so intriguing: for every argument you make for either team there is a counter argument that the other side can foil what’s thrown at them.
Either way, Gavin needs to reshuffle his defence and make some big calls. Will James McCarthy play at six on Seán O’Shea? Will Eoin Murchan come in? These decisions might just define the legacy of a managerial great. I’d play Jonny Cooper on Paul Geaney, Mick Fitz on Clifford and Small or Murchan on O’Brien and O’Shea – take your pick. You have to negate the big forwards.
Are Dublin arrogant enough to put Cooper on Clifford again? Hell yeah.
Standards
Further out the field, Brian Fenton and Michael Darragh Macauley won’t be happy with their displays the last day, and neither will Scully, Con O’Callaghan, Paul Mannion or Ciarán Kilkenny. They weren’t terrible, they worked outrageously hard, but they just didn’t hurt Kerry on the scoreboard like they’ve done in other years.
Dublin have room for improvement and if they make it today, it’s hard to see them beaten, but don’t for a second think Kerry won’t also improve. They will. As good as their defence was, Dean Rock still hit four points from play the last day so there’s an obvious area they can work on. O’Brien, Geaney and Clifford all played okay, but were well below the standards they expect of themselves.
If I were Peter Keane, I’d keep Gavin White on Jack McCaffrey because I don’t think he marked him man-to-man the last day and I’d give him different instructions. Kerry have the forwards to hurt Dublin so they don’t need to rely on White for scores: all he has to do is forget the ball, cover McCaffrey’s runs, stay goal-side of him and anticipate before he gets the ball.
Kerry will have prepared for McCaffrey but taking on Dublin is like playing the whack-a-mole game: as soon as you put one back in its hole another pops up elsewhere. Kerry thought the defensive unit as a whole would gobble up McCaffrey the last day. It didn’t, and they have to be very careful the strong points of the last day are kept strong. Paul Murphy is an option and don’t be surprised if Shane Enright is brought on in a reshuffle.
Everyone talks about the expectation for those who underperformed last time out but we shouldn’t forget the guys who were outstanding: it’s a huge challenge for them to kick on again. Think of David Moran: he’s coming in on a high but imagine what Brian Fenton will bring, and there’s another five or six Dublin players in the same boat. If and when they show up, Moran will have a very different animal to deal with. Can Tom O’Sullivan do the same to Con? Gavin Crowley to Kilkenny? Tadhg Morley to
Mannion?
Kerry will focus on Cluxton, McCaffrey, Dean Rock, but they’ll be very wary of the superstars of Dublin who didn’t poke their head up a fortnight ago.
Both teams will be disappointed with how they finished out the game: Kerry had no shot for the last 12 minutes and were turned over four or five times. There was no option, it looked like they froze, while Dublin missed four or five scores and seemed to lack the composure to wait until the really right moment to take a shot.
If both teams get to the final 10 minutes
in contention today, it’ll come down to who has toughened up more mentally and who can create and take the opportunities – who can work hard enough to stop the opposition.
Who will edge it? I think it will be whoever has the most clinical forward line. For me, Kerry holding out that Dublin forward line was down in no small way to Jack Barry, Adrian Spillane, Tadhg Morley, Gavin Crowley, Brian Begley – their perceived weaknesses becoming strengths. Before the game we said there’s no way they’ll go for 70 minutes but that’s exactly what they did.
If Kerry can get those guys going well again for 70 minutes, and hold the Dublin forwards the way they did, I think they can win. The improvement of Kerry defensively as a 15-man unit has been huge as the year progressed, but the first 15 or 20 minutes will be key today because I think Dublin will again go for the jugular.
But if you flip all that and the Dublin backs step up, then the drive for five will have finally arrived.
The joy of this clash is that nobody can predict which set of backs and which set of forwards will come out on top. Expect Cluxton and Shane Ryan to feature here because whoever has most possession will have an advantage. It seems to me that Ryan can be got at more but the Dubs are half-afraid to commit fully because of Kerry’s threat up front.
Gun to the head? I feel Dublin might edge it. The lads who were below par for them have done it on so many big days that I’d be very disappointed in them if they didn’t step up today. If they can do that as a collective unit, then they should shade it.
But that prediction rests on a knife edge and I think it will go down the stretch – the proper way to earn a place in a pantheon of immortality.