Dublin Match Preview
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:51 am
It's a long time since I've been this pessimistic about a match that we supposedly have a chance in. Hopefully some optimists out there will convince me as to the error of my ways ......
This week, you’re likely to read a lot of material calling into question the Dubs, their stomach for a hard battle, and contrasting this current batch of metropolitans with their counterparts that had such ding dong battles with Offaly in the late seventies and early eighties. Reading all this stuff, it could be very easy get swept away on a tide of optimism going into next weekend. If you start thinking like that, it could be worth bearing a few things in mind.
Next Sunday will be the third time in a little over a year that Offaly will have come head to head with Dublin in a competitive fixture. The first time was in last year’s NFL, when Dublin held Offaly scoreless for 55 minutes before having their winning margin reduced by a spate of late goals. Later that year in Croke Park Dublin emerged victorious by nine points in a game where Offaly’s brave resistance was eventually worn down and the team succumbed to the more powerful and superior team on the day.
Since then, Offaly’s 2006 championship petered out with the team’s worst performance in living memory against their southern neighbours, the 2007 NFL was an unmitigated disaster with a mere three wins - all garnered against sides who would be in the bottom five in the country - and in the championship the team succeeded in breaking in sweat against Carlow, but more because of the heat than any great need to dig deep to fob off the challenge of the Barrowsiders. In contrast, the Dubs came within one point of reaching an All Ireland final, finished in mid table in the toughest league division in the country and just polished off their biggest rivals in a fiercely competitive 140 minutes of football.
All this may seem like stating the obvious, but it bears repeating this week. Dublin remain clear third favourites behind Tyrone and Kerry in the race for the All Ireland, but to listen to some commentators across the national media who love nothing more than pointing out the reasons why this current Dublin team will not lift the Sam Maguire. No team gets analysed or criticised as intensely as Dublin and it would be very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that this Dublin team is on the brink of collapsing mentally and putting all these supposed weaknesses on display in a big Leinster or All Ireland Championship match, possibly even this weekend’s match.
The truth is that Dublin do have issues they need to resolve to maximise their potential, but even if one is to make the assumption that they have not improved in the last twelve months (a big assumption factoring in how much of a boost their win last Sunday will have given the team) it’s very difficult to see Offaly having improved by nine points over the same period as is necessary to get a result. There are a couple of areas that optimists will be looking towards, but it’s all too easy to dispel the optimism with a quick counterpoint in each case. PJ Ward appears to have added a new threat in the full forward line, but even if we presume that his true form is what we saw against Carlow rather than what we saw in the NFL, his good form is compensated for by the current slump being experienced by last summer’s scoring sensation, Thomas Deehan. Niall Smith’s championship debut at midfield was encouraging, but expecting him to thrive against a seasoned campaigner like Ciarán Whelan is another matter entirely. Scott Brady’s reversion to the number six jersey gave the county a much better presence in the crucial centre back position, but next Sunday he will be faced with either Shane Ryan, Alan Brogan or possibly Jason Sherlock – each of which would test the Clara man’s mobility a lot more than his unquestioned strength or physique.
The last bastion for the optimism would be to join in the chorus of national commentators who like finding fault with Dublin and picking on aspects such as their inexperienced full back (the guy who saw off Joe Sheridan last Sunday) their tendency to go long periods without scoring (Carlow went huge periods without scoring, they still finished up with 3-7, almost double Offaly’s tally against the Dubs last year) or their lack of a proven blue chip forward who’ll score three points or more from play even on a bad day (Keaney, Brogan, Quinn, Sherlock and now Vaughan – that’s a lot of potentially heavy scorers to compensate for whoever misfires)
As if that wasn’t enough, now here’s one for the conspiracy theorists among you – do not underestimate how much of a problem it will cause the GAA if Offaly were to upset the odds and eliminate Dublin from the Leinster Championship next Sunday. Not for the financial reasons that many would presume, but in terms of the new qualifier structure.
When creating the new system, it was more or less presumed that the 8 division four teams would “behave” and trot meekly into the Tommy Murphy like they were supposed to. The backdoor schedule, with rounds fixed for the 7th, 14th and 21st of July with the first of the quarter finals on the 28th/29th July is very intense, so it goes without saying that in that environment an extra qualifier game next weekend to reduce the pot from 17 to 16 teams would not be welcome. Either team drawn in that fixture would have to play and win on five consecutive weekends to reach the All Ireland semi finals, a huge ask of any team and grossly unfair on the two teams involved. It would lead to widespread accusations of favouritism, since if Dublin and/or the losers of Derry vs Monaghan or Galway vs Leitrim were drawn into this fixture they could say that they only had a week break, something that was supposed to be eliminated under the new structure. If any of these teams were not drawn into the fixture, all others would question a rigged draw in order to avoid this controversy – the GAA would be in a no win situation. In that environment, would it be so difficult to understand the 50/50 calls going Dublin’s way?…..
A top class opposition with 70,000 fans cheering them on, a dearth of proper preparatory games and an establishment that would be greatly convenienced by Offaly’s elimination into the pointless farce that is the Tommy Murphy Cup. The stage is set lads. Good luck.
This week, you’re likely to read a lot of material calling into question the Dubs, their stomach for a hard battle, and contrasting this current batch of metropolitans with their counterparts that had such ding dong battles with Offaly in the late seventies and early eighties. Reading all this stuff, it could be very easy get swept away on a tide of optimism going into next weekend. If you start thinking like that, it could be worth bearing a few things in mind.
Next Sunday will be the third time in a little over a year that Offaly will have come head to head with Dublin in a competitive fixture. The first time was in last year’s NFL, when Dublin held Offaly scoreless for 55 minutes before having their winning margin reduced by a spate of late goals. Later that year in Croke Park Dublin emerged victorious by nine points in a game where Offaly’s brave resistance was eventually worn down and the team succumbed to the more powerful and superior team on the day.
Since then, Offaly’s 2006 championship petered out with the team’s worst performance in living memory against their southern neighbours, the 2007 NFL was an unmitigated disaster with a mere three wins - all garnered against sides who would be in the bottom five in the country - and in the championship the team succeeded in breaking in sweat against Carlow, but more because of the heat than any great need to dig deep to fob off the challenge of the Barrowsiders. In contrast, the Dubs came within one point of reaching an All Ireland final, finished in mid table in the toughest league division in the country and just polished off their biggest rivals in a fiercely competitive 140 minutes of football.
All this may seem like stating the obvious, but it bears repeating this week. Dublin remain clear third favourites behind Tyrone and Kerry in the race for the All Ireland, but to listen to some commentators across the national media who love nothing more than pointing out the reasons why this current Dublin team will not lift the Sam Maguire. No team gets analysed or criticised as intensely as Dublin and it would be very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that this Dublin team is on the brink of collapsing mentally and putting all these supposed weaknesses on display in a big Leinster or All Ireland Championship match, possibly even this weekend’s match.
The truth is that Dublin do have issues they need to resolve to maximise their potential, but even if one is to make the assumption that they have not improved in the last twelve months (a big assumption factoring in how much of a boost their win last Sunday will have given the team) it’s very difficult to see Offaly having improved by nine points over the same period as is necessary to get a result. There are a couple of areas that optimists will be looking towards, but it’s all too easy to dispel the optimism with a quick counterpoint in each case. PJ Ward appears to have added a new threat in the full forward line, but even if we presume that his true form is what we saw against Carlow rather than what we saw in the NFL, his good form is compensated for by the current slump being experienced by last summer’s scoring sensation, Thomas Deehan. Niall Smith’s championship debut at midfield was encouraging, but expecting him to thrive against a seasoned campaigner like Ciarán Whelan is another matter entirely. Scott Brady’s reversion to the number six jersey gave the county a much better presence in the crucial centre back position, but next Sunday he will be faced with either Shane Ryan, Alan Brogan or possibly Jason Sherlock – each of which would test the Clara man’s mobility a lot more than his unquestioned strength or physique.
The last bastion for the optimism would be to join in the chorus of national commentators who like finding fault with Dublin and picking on aspects such as their inexperienced full back (the guy who saw off Joe Sheridan last Sunday) their tendency to go long periods without scoring (Carlow went huge periods without scoring, they still finished up with 3-7, almost double Offaly’s tally against the Dubs last year) or their lack of a proven blue chip forward who’ll score three points or more from play even on a bad day (Keaney, Brogan, Quinn, Sherlock and now Vaughan – that’s a lot of potentially heavy scorers to compensate for whoever misfires)
As if that wasn’t enough, now here’s one for the conspiracy theorists among you – do not underestimate how much of a problem it will cause the GAA if Offaly were to upset the odds and eliminate Dublin from the Leinster Championship next Sunday. Not for the financial reasons that many would presume, but in terms of the new qualifier structure.
When creating the new system, it was more or less presumed that the 8 division four teams would “behave” and trot meekly into the Tommy Murphy like they were supposed to. The backdoor schedule, with rounds fixed for the 7th, 14th and 21st of July with the first of the quarter finals on the 28th/29th July is very intense, so it goes without saying that in that environment an extra qualifier game next weekend to reduce the pot from 17 to 16 teams would not be welcome. Either team drawn in that fixture would have to play and win on five consecutive weekends to reach the All Ireland semi finals, a huge ask of any team and grossly unfair on the two teams involved. It would lead to widespread accusations of favouritism, since if Dublin and/or the losers of Derry vs Monaghan or Galway vs Leitrim were drawn into this fixture they could say that they only had a week break, something that was supposed to be eliminated under the new structure. If any of these teams were not drawn into the fixture, all others would question a rigged draw in order to avoid this controversy – the GAA would be in a no win situation. In that environment, would it be so difficult to understand the 50/50 calls going Dublin’s way?…..
A top class opposition with 70,000 fans cheering them on, a dearth of proper preparatory games and an establishment that would be greatly convenienced by Offaly’s elimination into the pointless farce that is the Tommy Murphy Cup. The stage is set lads. Good luck.