Dublin’s next defeat is simply impossible to foresee
Galway treated as a bump on the Blues’ road towards another All-Ireland title
‘THEY ARE ALREADY THE MATCH OF TEAMS SCHOOLED BY HEFFO
IN A summer of uncommon upheaval in Gaelic games, Dublin’s brilliance remains a certainty. Another All-Ireland final, another near-flawless performance, another step towards the status of the finest football team yet.
This was as people expected it would be: Galway were willing, Dublin were ruthless.
All that needed clarifying was the final score, and the champions could have won this by a margin well north of a dozen points.
Nine was the size of the final gap, and that’s big enough to provide some indication of just how good they were.
A Saturday throw-in for an All-Ireland semi-final was only another in the litany of challenges to tradition this season. The most dramatic have come in hurling, a competition that has pulsed with daring since the start of May.
No sport would be flattered in comparison, but there has been a general understatement to the football competition that brought us to this point, with Dublin two matches away from four in a row and Croke Park almost 30,000 away from reaching its capacity.
When Barry Cassidy threw the ball in at 5pm, the noise reached a pitch befitting the penultimate round of the most popular sporting competition in the country.
But before then, this was an occasion that crept up on the capital city. There were no great maroon ribbons winding their way from the city centre into the north inner city. The Hill 16 army took up position in leisurely dribs and drabs.
It was all in keeping with a summer in which Dublin are stealing towards greatness.
By tea-time on September 2 this could be celebrated as a team that are equal to any of the mighty sides that have played and dominated this game.
They are already the match of the teams schooled by Kevin Heffernan. And yet they have emerged in late summer as imperceptibly as the first blackberries.
Their season has been a measure of the year passing much more than a thunderous charge to glory.
Most of this isn’t their doing. Their style has certainly changed, the buccaneering urges of Jim Gavin’s first couple of seasons in charge swapped for a more patient game that brings the expected outcome nonetheless.
But Leinster grows more arid and less interesting with each passing season. Were it not for the Super 8s, and in particular the trip to Omagh that allowed Dublin to successfully road-test their excellence, then this campaign would have been a featureless monument to their qualities.
When the inadequacies of Mayo and Kerry eventually did for them, the search for believable rivals to Dublin took on a frantic note.
It is why Tyrone are sold as putative contenders before today’s semifinal against Monaghan, despite any evidence that they have improved beyond the team that Dublin tore to pieces this time 12 months ago.
And it is why Galway’s stock was so energetically traded. Their excellent Allianz League campaign nourished expectations that were boosted by a Connacht SFC title.
But if they were overvalued after a springtime that saw some in Division 1 sacrifice form for experimentation, the revision that took place after their defeat to Monaghan in Salthill a week ago was even more drastic.
A diagnosis of their health was provided here by the champions. They are a side with some young players that could benefit from an experience like this one.
They are entitled to expect more appearances at this juncture in the summer. But they were not equipped to beat Dublin. They could do little more than interrupt their rhythm for a few minutes in the first half. That was the long and the short of their effort.
And there is no disgrace in that. Better sides than them have been crumpled by this generation of Dublin stars. But here they were a roadbump expertly negotiated by hardened travellers.
Damien Comer’s goal after eight minutes lit the hopes of the few thousand Galway supporters who had travelled east. His fisted connection with Ciarán Duggan’s ball in, picked at old weaknesses in this Dublin defence under high balls.
And from the botched re-start, Comer hit a shot straight at Stephen Cluxton. Had that gone in, Galway would have gone three points ahead, 2-0 to 0-3 – and they still would not have won the match.
It is difficult to imagine any circumstances under which Dublin would not have found a way around a Galway obstacle.
Their excellence is so practised, so disciplined and so reliably executed that they look fortified to deal with any challenge.
Gavin’s management is responsible for this, but his on-field leaders are tremendous.
The most impressive of them is now Brian Fenton, the player-of-theyear in waiting.
He offers athleticism, hard work and class in a ceaseless package.
A raking point from Fenton put Dublin eight points ahead here, with the contest long over. Yet he celebrated it by punching the air like an excited hurler.
It spoke to what motivates Dublin. Their drive comes from within. They do not hang their desire on old gripes or perceived slights.
Rather, they are made great by themselves, by the quality of their training, the competition for places and the pedigree of the men who get to wear the shirts.
Jack McCaffrey and Ciarán Kilkenny, along with James McCarthy, serve next to Fenton in importance.
Then there is a player like Brian Howard, new but who looks established already. Bernard Brogan’s return from a cruciate injury against Roscommon last Sunday was the feelgood story of the week; he wasn’t included in the 26 here.
This group look fitted out for anything. Perhaps a zombie apocalypse could unsettle them, but one couldn’t be sure.
The sight of Cian O’Sullivan limping off was a rare cloudy moment, but that will not derail them.
The truth is O’Sullivan is not as vital to them as he was in 2015, when redeployed by Gavin in the aftermath of defeat to Donegal a year earlier.
That was the last time they lost a Championship match. The next reversal is impossible to foresee.
Dublin are peerless.
Dublin don’t hang their desire on perceived slights