Untouchable Dubs have a real flavour of Kerry gold
So, they are hugely ambitious. Like the great French rugby side of Serge Blanco and Patrice Lagisquet, they attack from everywhere.
A ball turned over in their own square is an opportunity to go for goal at the other end of the pitch. When Bernard Brogan took a pass in the League final 25 metres out, on the edge of Derry’s massed defence, any other forward in the country would have popped it over the bar. Except a Dub. Brogan went for an improbable goal into the top corner. It came off, but might as easily have gone wide.
In the same game, when Kevin McManamon took possession 70 metres out near the touchline, we knew instantly he would go for goal. We got to our feet and watched, thrilled, as he soloed through the defence and duly found the net.
From the throw-in against Derry, only full-back Rory O’Carroll stayed in position. The rest immediately went on the attack. For most of the game, Derry were hemmed into their own half. Gavin has spoken eloquently about facilitating the players’ ambition to play the best football they can play. Because he truly means that, the players are happy to go for it.
The spirit of the group also explains their relentlessness. Nothing deters them. Nothing makes them rest on their laurels. Ten points behind against Cork? Big deal. Ten points up against Derry? Big deal. They just kept hammering on. And on. And on.
No show boating, no strutting. Just playing as hard as they could. For them, every ball is a life-or-death contest. So, the opposition never gets a breather. They just get more and more shell-shocked.
Again, because their real desire is to play for the group, they are not distracted by any of the usual suspects. They always give full respect to the opponent. There is no posing and no show-boating.
They go out, play at full throttle, then stop at the final whistle. Think of the Kerry match last year, when any other team would have crumbled under the brilliance of the Kingdom’s attacking play. That game illustrated the fallacy of another theory, that the Dubs are vulnerable at the back.
ABETTER way to put it is that they look vulnerable at the back compared to the blanket-defensive systems that we have become used to. Invariably, teams will create at least a few good goal chances against them. The problem is they will have to spend 90 per cent of their time hemmed into their own defensive area. All of the Dubs can and will score.
It will be interesting to see how they cope with a full-scale blanket defence. In 2011, Donegal nearly beat Pat Gilroy’s Dublin. But Dublin’s half-backs stayed back that day and they operated a blanket defence of their own, so it became a defensive stalemate. Gavin’s Dublin would have pushed up on Donegal’s sweepers, closed them in and attacked relentlessly.
As they have shown in the last 18 months, ‘New Dublin’ can play the game any way you want to.
It is impossible not to feel a sense of awe when watching them. Just like we felt when we watched Pat Spillane, ‘Bomber’ Liston and the Kerry lads revelling in their excellence.
Former All-Ireland winner, player and now Dublin team doctor Dave Hickey has been predicting a five-in-a-row since last September.
By the looks of things, it’s going to take more than a push in the back for a lastminute goal to stop them.