Insatiable Dubs gorge on Tyrone to leave Dooher embarrassed

Funny oul’ game. The Dubs smoothed out their Division 1 programme cruising to victory in Croke Park over a Tyrone team present solely in body – and even then, only just.

Truth be told, most of us had assumed their days of cruising to big league wins over viable All-Ireland rivals were a thing of the past. A relic.

More or less, it had been accepted in the national discourse that the age profile of Dublin’s squad meant their season had to be designed to peak in mid-summer or not at all.

Since losing their first two games of the league by a point (to Monaghan and Mayo), Dublin have gorged on everything placed before them; beating Roscommon (seven points), Kerry (10), Derry (five), Galway (eight) and yesterday, Tyrone (21), a twinkling necklace of spring victories.

Asked whether the league could have gone any better since losing in Castlebar, Farrell considered the question for a brief pause before realising he had no choice but to agree with its premise.

“No, it probably couldn’t,” he said, before qualifying it with: “Reasonably happy with where we’re at. But there’s nothing given out at this time of the year. It’s great to get another game out the next day against really, really good opposition. That will steel us and we’ll be able to test ourselves again.”

The big question about yesterday was where exactly Tyrone’s minds were at. The team itself was diluted and water weak. There was no Darragh Canavan, no Pádraig Hampsey, Peter Harte, Conn Kilpatrick or Michael McKernan.

But it was their application that raised the hackles of Brian Dooher afterwards.

“It’s a bit of an embarrassment,” said Dooher, who spared nobody, including himself. “It just wasn’t good enough, and we know that. There’s no point making excuses, it’s just not where we need to be,” he added.

Pertinent

“For one reason or another, we just weren’t at the races there, and we were punished every time we made errors, well and truly punished for it, and rightly so.”

Still. It was pertinent to remember that in Dooher, Tyrone have a manager who once turned a 16-point loss to Kerry in a league semi-final into an All-Ireland win.

But it was hard to think of another inter-county game where a team had conceded five goals on the break.

For Dublin’s first, Brian Howard kicked a pass 70 metres into a curiously vacant patch of space inside the Tyrone’s ’45 near the Hogan Stand sideline and into the stride of Brian Fenton.

An array of good options to chose from, Fenton went with the both the best and the one with the highest level of difficulty, a padded lateral ball to Con O’Callaghan.

Had he a mind, O’Callaghan could have spun and shot himself but had an outrider in the form of Collie Basquel, who did his duty from eight metres.

For Dublin’s second, Tyrone engaged in the lesser-spotted blanket-attack tactic.

Frustrated and forced into reverse by their initial attempts to work a scoring chance, they kept sending runners into the scoring zone until fully all 15

5-18 0-12

Despite a clinical display, Wexford failed to achieve promotion – but their impressive victory sets them up for their opening-round Leinster SFC clash with Carlow.

Wexford dominated their opponents and the victory margin would have have been greater but for three fine second-half saves from Longford ’keeper Micheál Hughes.

Wexford swept into a 0-4 to 0-0 lead after 10 minutes before Longford had their opening point through Daniel Mimnagh after 14 minutes, while a Mimnagh goal four minutes later against the run of play had the sides level (0-5 to 1-2).

In a four-minute spell Wexford put the issue beyond doubt with goals from a Mark Rossiter penalty and wing-back Glen Malone, which left them leading 2-10 to 1-3 at the interval.

Despite a 41st-minute Cathal McCabe goal, the visitors were never going to trouble the home side, who introduced 36-year-old Ben Brosnan at the interval, for a record-breaking 175th appearance. SCORERS – Wexford: S Nolan (6f, 2m) 0-9; G Malone 1-2; M Rossiter (1-0 pen) 1-1; K O’Grady, N Hughes 0-2 each; D Furlong, C Kinsella 0-1 each. Longford: D Mimnagh 1-2; M Hughes (3f) 0-4; C McCabe 1-0; D Gallagher (1f, 1, 45) 0-2; J Hagan 0-1. WEXFORD: R Tubritt 7; E Porter 7, G Sheehan 7, D Lyons 7; K O’Grady 9, D Furlong 7, G Malone 8; L Coleman 7, N Hughes 7; C Kinsella 7, E Nolan 6, P Hughes 6; M Rossiter 6, S Nolan 8, G Cullen 6. Subs: B Brosnan 7 for Nolan (h-t); R Waters 7 for Cullen (48); L O’Connor 6 for Lyons, C Walsh 6 for O’Grady (both 60), D O’Toole 6 for Nolan (65). LONGFORD: M Hughes 7; P Fox 7, O O’Toole, L Hughes 6; R Harkin 6, R Moffett 7, D Reynolds 7; D Gallagher 7, P Kiernan 6; M Hughes 7, M Quinn 6, J Hagan 6; D Reynolds 6, D Mimnnagh 7, C McCabe 6. Subs: D Farrell 7 for Reynolds, B Masterson 7 for Harkin (both 44), J Matthews 6 for Kiernan (49), B Peters for McCabe (70), D Duggan for Hagan (70). REF: A Coyne (Westmeath).