Championship 2017
THE MARCH TO SAM MAGUIRE
IT IS a measure of Dublin’s greatness that the rest of the counties are reduced to squinting hard for evidence of light at the end of the tunnel.
It starts all over again next weekend, but for the majority it is a race where they measure success by setting the tape on how deep into the summer they can go rather than entertaining any notion that they will still be still standing at the end.
We can indulge in a hand-wringing session about the rights and wrongs of that but talk of real structural reform in the GAA is cheap, veering on the pointless.
It may well be the reform which will be in place from next year with the advent of the Super 8s will set the football Championship off on a new path.
It is hard to believe that the minileague concept will survive after 2020 – when its three-year probationary period will be at and end – without it being expanded to incorporate everyone.
And if the latter happens, it may just be possible that the notion of a tiered Championship might become more palatable to those who − up to now − believe that the glory of the Championship is best served by enduring it for time-honoured sake than reforming it for their own.
Anyway, we are where we are, which is with one exceptional team and a bare handful of others who can qualify as contenders.
In that this summer is no different to any other with the exception that Dublin’s bid to become the first in 31 years to win a third AllIreland title in a row provides added significance.
Winning it would elevate Jim Gavin’s team to a place in the pantheon close to the summit; most likely with only Kerry’s great team of the 1970s and ’80s still ahead of them.
That’s how good they are and that is how much they have to play for, but significantly that is not how Gavin will view it.
Stripped bare, this is just another Championship for his team to win and, most likely, he will seek to light the fire in their bellies not with talk of their impending greatness but by urging them to stick it to those who believe they are running out of road.
He would still rather have won a fifth League title in a row, yet few doubted leaving Croke Park after their one-point defeat to Kerry last
month that the champions had just become harder to beat.
They ended losing that game much like they had so won so many others; on the front-foot chasing hard and had they been awarded a merited late penalty we would most likely be warbling on here about their eternal capacity to win games in a way that others simply cannot.
That was pretty much the narrative of the spring; wriggling out of deep holes against Tyrone, Kerry and Monaghan to set a new all-time unbeaten record.
Some, no doubt, chose to see Dublin being squeezed so hard as evidence that the champions were being reeled back in, but there is nothing new in that.
Both Mayo, in particular, and Kerry have spent most of this decade rattling the champions’ cage, but in the end have been left bloodied and bruised.
Since 2013, over five Championship games, Dublin’s average winning margin is just under two points against Mayo which is quite astonishing.
They have had more breathing room against Kerry but on occa As sions – most notably 2013 and last year – were made to feel genuine distress before coming from behind to win in epic contests.
Those games remind us of the absolute truth that no team is unbeatable but it is also reminds that great teams are hard-nosed, unblinking and fearless when backed into a corner. And that’s Dublin all over.
We could be generous and suggest that there are at least four teams out there who can take them, but Tyrone have done little to suggest that they have the ability to match their organisation.
Donegal are better placed, but perhaps this is 12 months too early for a team that will lean heavily on exciting new talent and the leadership provided by Michael Murphy and Ryan McHugh.
We are back to the usual suspects, then.
The defiance of this Mayo group is staggering and there is nothing to suggest that they won’t come hard again.
True, their production line is hardly what it should be – a more pronounced role for Stephen Coen and the likely introduction of Fergus Boland may prove to be the most obvious indicators of change − but it is how they utilise what they have will dictate how they roll.
ever, that means a defined role for Aidan O’Shea, one ideally best marked by a maximum 40-metre boundary line from the opposition goal.
His presence there is critical in an inside line lacking in legs and staying power, but after that there is not a whole pile else which Stephen Rochford can change.
And the sense remains that this latest push will most likely come up shy.
As for Kerry, some of the feel good factor which accompanied their League final success has drained in the meantime.
The implosion of their Under 21s did not sit well; the manner of their 2-14 to 2-10 semi-final defeat to Galway reaffirming the suspicion that their golden generation of minors may not be developing at quite the speed they had hoped.
In many ways their problems have flipped in that they possess a surplus of defensive options but are shy in offensive ones.
Éamonn Fitzmaurice has sought to compensate class for toil, providing Kerry with the athleticism to match Dublin – most notably with Jack Barry – in the middle of the field, but it is hard to believe that will be enough.
They are so light in attacking cover that should anything happen Paul Geaney they could sink out of sight, while their hopes that James O’Donoghue can return to his season-defining 2014 form is a tad optimistic given all of the injuries which the Killarney Legion corner forward has endured.
In Dublin’s land of riches, the questions posed after different and more comforting?
Such as; is this the summer that Paul Mannion is given his head?
Or will Con O’Callaghan make the breakthrough from that U21 winning team?
And how exactly will they fit five half-backs in a three-man line?
There are at least four teams who could challenge the champions
That last poser could be the dealswinger. If there is an obvious weak-link for the champions it is in the middle of the field where they seek a suitable pillion passenger for Brian Fenton.
With a surplus of half-backs – the return of Jack McCaffrey, the promise of Eric Lowndes, the versatility of Niall Scully – it could pave the way for Cian O’Sullivan’s return to the middle.
What might prove even more transformative is James McCarthy replicating his club role as a midfielder with Ballymun Kickhams, which would provide Dublin with the kind of engine that could see them coast all the way to that threein-a-row.
Either way, they have a multiple of options and a ton of class to ensure that they will get it done.
Éamonn Fitzmaurice has sought to compensate class for toil