The 16th Man

NO one can do All-Ireland semi-final heartbreak quite like the Dubs.

Mayo might self-harm in All-Ireland finals in the most spectacular of fashions, but its Dublin fans who know the heartbreak of semi-finals.

Since 2002 the Boys in Blue have been to the second last fence on four occasions. There have been four agonising defeats by a combined total of five points.

In ’02 Ray Cosgrove hit the post with the last kick of the game and Armagh squeezed into the final by a single point.

In ’06 they blew a seven-point second half lead against Mayo to lose by one. 12 months later two points was the margin against Kerry.

And yesterday, after dominating the game and leading for 68 minutes, they let another invitation to the big dance in September slip through their fingers.

Credit must go to Cork for sticking to their task in a game they looked set to be rubbed out of for long periods.

But it will take Dublin a long time to get over this one.

Before the match, manager Pat Gilroy spoke about being in ‘bonus territory’, but this was just a screen to deflect as much pressure as possible away from his team.

Gilroy and his players will know that they are unlikely to get a better chance of winning Sam Maguire than they had this year.

Kerry were beaten, they knocked Tyrone out and Cork were stuttering through the season.

Momentum was behind them and the fans had finally returned to Hill 16.

Gilroy will be content with 2010 on many fronts - he has rebuilt a team, found a few new players and hit upon a system that masks many of his side’s short-comings.

Progress has definitely been made, but there’s no guarantee that Dublin will be back in an All-Ireland semi-final again any time soon.

Tommy Lyons was in charge in 2002. It was his first season in the job and even amidst the heartbreak of that defeat to Armagh, there was optimism for the future.

But Lyons never again managed to steer his side to a Leinster title. His time as Dublin manager ended in acrimony and boos and fans spitting at him as he left the field.

There’s no one predicting that anything similar awaits Gilroy, but it illustrates how things can go wrong.

When the dust settles on Sunday’s loss to Cork, the size of the opportunity lost will live with Dublin’s footballers.

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WELCOME to the build-up to what will unquestionably be the most anticipated game of the year.

Dublin against Cork in next Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final has been 15 years in the making.

The last time these teams clashed in the Championship was the 1995 semi-final which the Dubs won on the way to their most recent Sam Maguire triumph.

That was payback for their ’89 semi reverse against the Rebels. Cork won that year too and though they retained Sam in 1990 they haven’t been back in the winners’ enclosure since.

This is a meeting of the two biggest cities on the island – the actual capital against the real capital. But it also a meeting between two success starved sides who have only one All-Ireland apiece in 20 years.

Cork are favourites, but that’s courtesy of their performances last season and during the National League rather than anything they have done this summer.

They have yet to deliver a single outstanding display since April and few of their leading lights have shone.

Few people, not even the players and management, expected Dublin to still be standing at this late stage of the campaign. But here they are, thanks to their ultra-intense win over Tyrone last month.

That was the Boys in Blues’ first win over a leading county since they lowered the Red Hand’s colours in the ’95 final.

It was probably the best team performance of the summer, but no one is getting too carried away because Dublin have let their supporters down once too often in the past.

Against the Tyrone in the quarter-final, the Dubs defended from deep and allowed their opponents to win every single one of their own kick-outs in the fullback or halfback lines.

They may well try this again on Sunday, but Cork have the size and the strength that Tyrone lacked to kick long and trust that they can contest around the middle third.

As the Rebels proved last year too, also against Mickey Harte’s team, they can ratchet up the intensity and they have the physical attributes to break tackles and turn the ball over.

This negates a lot of what Dublin have going for them, but there is the small matter of Bernard Brogan – the in form footballer in the country.

Cork are likely to put Michael Shields on him and don’t be surprised to see an extra man screening the fullback line just to be sure.

This has been a brilliant summer so far for Gaelic football and Sunday could be its crowning glory. At the moment it looks advantage Cork.

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CORK may have been the least impressive of the four winning quarter-finalists, but they are the only team still in the competition that are under pressure to deliver.

Down, Dublin and Kildare are all in bonus territory. Cork by contrast are even money favourites to take Sam Maguire and anything less would have devastating results for them.

They have been knocking on the door of an All-Ireland for five years. If they win in September it may well be the start of a new era of Rebel dominance in football.

By contrast, if they lose it would most likely mark the end of this team.

The likes of Graham Canty, Paudie Kissane, Nicholas Murphy and John Miskella are all approaching the ends of their careers.

Another crushing defeat would surely send them into retirement and leave the Rebels facing a massive rebuilding project.

Last year’s All-Ireland final reverse against Kerry was a near-terminal blow and they have done well to bounce back as far as they have.

But winning Sam is the only option for them this year and that knowledge can strangle even the best of players.

So far this year they have been playing like a team with the burden of expectation weighing heavily on them.

They should have put Kerry away in both the Munster semi-final draw and replay given the amount of possession that they won in the middle of the field.

But sticking the ball over the bar has been a problem throughout this season, with manager Conor Counihan struggling to find his best combination up front.

He can’t find the right centre forward, Ciaran Sheehan’s development hasn’t come along as he would have wished while Daniel Goulding and Colm O’Neill haven’t found their 2009 form yet.

As a unit they played sensational football throughout 2009, peaking during the All-Ireland semi-final win over Tyrone and the first half of the final against Kerry.

They stopped playing in the second half of the decider and they haven’t approached those heights since.

Against Roscommon on Sunday they couldn’t get any sort of groove and they actually trailed at one stage in the second half before they finished strongly.

Cork’s semi-final against Dublin on August 22 will be fascinating. The clash of these two is always something special, as it was in 1983, 1989 and 1995.

The Rebels haven’t got the biggest football following and the Dubs’ fans deserted them for much of the summer, but tickets will be precious commodities for this one.

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• 10:26 5 Aug 2010

  Lynne A wrote:

  Great article

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THE GAA staunchly refuse to do away with their provincial championships, yet they continue to undermine them thanks to their All-Ireland qualifier structures.

The simple fact of the matter is this – the further a team goes in their province before being beaten, the worse the chances of them progressing through the backdoor.

Teams that exit Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster early generally have a few weeks to lick their wounds and get their heads around the All-Ireland qualifiers.

If they get the kind of draw they all hope for it gives them the chance to build up a head of steam and by the time the fourth round comes along they are being propelled by serious momentum.

The qualifiers were first introduced in 2001 and in the ten seasons since then only 14 out of 40 beaten provincial finalists, just over one in three, have managed to bounce back and take advantage of their second chance.

Last year only Kildare of the beaten provincial finalists made it to the All-Ireland quarter-final and this year none of the big-game losers managed to rebound. Limerick got the closest when they forced Cork to extra-time.

Perhaps the cruellest twist of all saw Sligo and Monaghan pushed back into action just six days after morale crushing final defeats.

Both counties had put everything into winning domestic silverware but lost in depressing circumstances.

And then less than a week later they were asked to go out and perform against teams that had put together qualifier runs.

Sligo fell to Down, who had two games behind them, while Kildare were in action for the fifth weekend in-a-row when they dispatched Monaghan.

A clearly frustrated Yeats County manager Kevin Walsh called the system ‘total crap’ on Saturday night and Down boss James McCartan admitted that they had’ taken advantage of the situation’.

Certainly, it’s hard to work out how Connacht, with the second smallest number of competing counties started their provincial schedule before anyone else but were still the last to complete their competition.

It’s inescapable that the teams who are given their second chances earlier make a better fist of the qualifiers.

For some years the GAA had a rule allowing beaten provincial finalists a minimum 13 days to recover before entering the qualifiers but that was done away with as the fixture calendar became ever-more crowded.

The provincial competitions aren’t going anywhere so the sooner Croke Park restore some degree of protection to teams that go further in their home championships the better.

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THIS time last year Tyrone left Ulster full of hope and as provincial champions.

Fast forward 12 months and they have hung on to the Anglo Celt Cup for the first time since 1995-’96 and they look to be in even better nick.

But it’s best to remember that in between these two domestic triumphs they were blown away by Cork in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final.

The Rebels are the biggest, strongest and most athletic team that Gaelic Games has ever produced and they were able to tear Tyrone’s defensive blanket to shreds in the first half.

And once they had Alan O’Connor sent off before the break they were happy to settle into their own pattern of containment, with the then-All-Ireland champions unable to come up with any answers.

So, has anything changed since then?

Well, Tyrone certainly look better equipped for the challenge and what’s sure is they still exist inside the Big Three. If they are to end up beaten this summer it will take Cork or Kerry to do it.

On the three occasions they have come into the Championship defending Sam Maguire they have struggled, with last year’s semi-final showing by far the best they have managed.

So Mickey Harte’s veterans have had a season to get their hunger back and that can be no bad thing.

The older stagers such as Conor Gormley, Ryan McMenamin and Brian Dooher all look to be in good fettle and they are all injury free. If Stephen O’Neill can keep himself right between now and September it would be a massive boost.

Joe McMahon is playing his way into Footballer of the Year territory with his displays of pure footballing ability as spare man in defence and Sean Cavanagh appears to be winding himself up for a few big days at Croke Park – the arena he loves best.

The spread of scorers Tyrone had in the Ulster final – ten of the starting team in all – is simply incredible and shows that this team is packed with ball players and the threat comes from everywhere.

Added to that Harte has found a few new gems like Cathal McCarron and Peter Harte.

Tyrone haven’t gone away, you know.

*PS The days of Ulster being considered the strongest of the four provinces in football are behind us.

On Saturday Armagh and Derry bombed against Leinster opponents and Tyrone strolled to victory in the final over a Monaghan team who only managed seven points across the 70 minutes.

Of course, it remains competitive and will always be a tough province to win but it is no longer head and shoulders above the rest.

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WHAT could have been the best good-news story in the GAA this year quickly turned into the biggest controversy of the decade.

Louth were within seconds of a fairytale first Leinster title in 53 years at Croke Park yesterday.

But they were robbed by a goal that shouldn’t have been with what was literally the last throw of the dice from Meath.

Joe Sheridan, one of the most talented forwards in the game, placed the ball over the line in his desperation to rescue a seemingly lost situation.

Referee Martin Sludden – and more importantly, his umpires who were right on the scene – allowed the ‘goal’ to stand and the Royals were crowned champions.

What happened after the final whistle was completely unacceptable with Sludden jostled and hit by outraged Louth fans.

He was left to fend for himself for far too long by gardai and stewards and there were very real fears that he was going to get seriously roughed up before he got off the field.

A steward was knocked to the ground with a bottle thrown from the crowd amid scenes that do the GAA no good.

In fact, it’s the worst exposure the Association has had since 2001 when delegates missed the vote on opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby, thus keeping the gates closed for another few years.

Three things have to happen and they must happen quickly for the GAA to regain its moral standing.

The first is that a replay has to be ordered because it is hard to think of a worse call deciding such an important sporting occasion in Ireland. Thierry Henry would have blushed.

Secondly the GAA have to finally embrace video technology when it comes to controversial scores.

Had Sludden, or a Television Match Official as in rugby, had the chance to watch a replay straight after the incident there’s a high likelihood that a free out would have been awarded and that Louth would have been bringing the Delaney Cup back across the Boyne Bridge in triumph.

Thirdly, those who ran onto the pitch and physically confronted the referee have to be identified, prosecuted and banned from all GAA activity for life.

A strong message must be sent out that there is no place in sport or wider society for violence.

Unfortunately, the third of these is the only one likely to be acted upon.

The power to offer a replay is entirely in Meath’s hands and the sounds coming out of the Royal County on the Sunday night weren’t very conciliatory.

As for video technology, the GAA are no closer than FIFA to embracing the future.

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THE fate of Kerry’s once promising season could now hang on a single decision from Croke Park’s secretive Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC).

Following their performances against Cork in the early rounds of the Munster Championship, the Kingdom were hot favourites to retain their All-Ireland crown.

They displayed once again that they were the best football team in the country and that it would be something out of the ordinary to stop them.

Well, now that something out of the ordinary appears to be happening.

First they lost current Footballer of the Year Paul Galvin to an eight-week suspension that rules him out of manager Jack O’Connor’s plans until after the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

And now they face the prospect of seeing Tomas O Se joining him in the stands in Croke Park on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Tomas mixed the brilliant with the inexplicable in last Sunday’s thrilling three-point Munster final win over Limerick.

He showed with his two points galloping forward from wingback why he was a predecessor of Galvin’s as a Footballer of the Year.

But he also displayed a cranky side when he got involved in a number of incidents, none of which were punished by referee Pat Fox.

Once the Sunday Game highlighted these flash-points, particularly an off-the-ball elbow to a Limerick player, it became almost inevitable that the CCCC will look into the matter.

If, as expected, they do, this could leave O Se facing a four-week ban and the prospect of missing out on the All-Ireland quarter-final.

Having Tomas and Galvin suspended would leave Kerry without two of their top five footballers and their two best ball winners on the ground. With the Kingdom midfield misfiring so badly, they need this type of player to get onto the all-important breaks.

From All-Ireland favourites, the Kingdom would turn into something altogether more vulnerable over that one weekend.

They have to wait another three weeks before they find out who they play in the quarter-finals, but the line-up is potentially gruesome for O’Connor and his team.

Last year they were lucky with the draw they got in their own backdoor odyssey, with three Division 4 outfits, followed by a badly mis-firing Dublin side once they got to Croke Park.

If their luck holds they could find themselves up against someone like Roscommon or even Offaly, Waterford or another lower tier team.

But the chances are they’re more likely to come across Cork, Monaghan or Tyrone – not the sort of opposition they’d want with two top performers out of action.

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IN AN All-Ireland race that is the widest open in years, Meath now have to be considered genuine Sam Maguire contenders.

Most of the pre-season money was wagered on Cork, Kerry and Tyrone.

The Rebels are back down at the foot of the mountain however and facing a long route through the qualifiers to get back to Croke Park.

Kerry are undoubtedly the best team in the country - but only so long as Paul Galvin is on the field and he is out for their next two games at least so there’s no guarantee that he will be able to make his return in the semi-finals.

Tyrone are ticking over nicely, but they were at this stage last year too only to be rumbled when the intensity ratcheted up a level or two at Headquarters.

So there’s nothing too frightening out there for teams that were considered outside of the top three - and that includes Meath.

The Royals have had a talented set of forwards for a number of years who have produced the occasional sensational performance. This summer they are all bang in form at the same time, as their five goals through four different players against Dublin last Sunday attests.

Goals win games and Meath’s attack knows where the net is - raising the green flag is always on the minds of Joe Sheridan, Cian Ward and Stephen Bray.

Their midfield wasn’t fantastic against the Dubs, but Nigel Crawford is set to return for the Leinster final against Louth on Sunday week.

It was feared that a bulging disk in his back would end his season so having him in the middle of the field again will be a huge boost to manager Eamonn O’Brien.

Crawford is the only players still active in Leinster with an All-Ireland medal and he’s also the only Meath man to have played in - and won - a senior provincial final before so his experience is invaluable.

The main worry about O’Brien’s team surrounded their defence, but in their last two games - against the Dubs and the replayed win over Laois - they have been water-tight.

The return of Kevin Reilly to full-back following a year out through injury has helped. In the corners Chris O’Connor is an able man-maker and Eoghan Harrington produced a great display last Sunday.

Another major plus for them is the fact that Meath expect to win - pressure doesn’t get to them, expectation doesn’t phase them and big-name opposition doesn’t frighten them.

So the Royals are back and it has made the summer even more interesting.

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DUBLIN’S five-year strangle-hold on the Leinster Senior Football Championship is likely to be broken at Croke Park next weekend.

The Dubs haven’t been beaten by a team from the province since Westmeath pulled off a shock on June 6, 2004.

But all good things must come to an end and on Sunday the Dubs appear to be heading towards an unhappy ending.

And it’s not as if they aren’t well warned. Their performance against Wexford in the Leinster quarter-final was as poor as a Dublin team have produced in living memory.

Meath needed a replay to see off a flaky Laois team on their side of the draw and the Royals have injury problems. But they do have excellent forwards, they have no fear of the sky blue jersey and they are due one over their neighbours.

The Dublin-Meath rivalry is one of the spiciest in the GAA, but the men from the capital have had it all their own way for much of the past decade. In fact the Royals haven’t come out on top since 2001 and in that time they have drawn once and been beaten four times.

Goalkeeper Paddy O’Rourke is suspended following his red card at the weekend, but this opens the way up for the excellent Brendan Murphy between the posts. Injury will probably keep Mark Ward and Mickey Burke out too, but there are adequate replacements there.

So, will the Dubs be as bad as they were the last day? Probably not. The pertinent question though, is, how much can they improve?

Last Sunday week was a near-disaster and only for Wexford tied up completely they would have been out of the Championship.

Players looked lost in the defensive system they were trying to play and manager Pat Gilroy had to turn to players many people had forgotten about to rescue the situation.

The signs aren’t great. They will be better but given their last two Croke Park performances (and let’s not forget last year’s 17-point defeat to Kerry) hopes cannot be high.

And if the Royals do come out on top, expect there to be blood.

In 2008 Paul Caffrey fell on his sword following defeat to Tyrone and last August’s mauling by the Kingdom ended the inter-county football careers of Ciaran Whelan, Shane Ryan and Jason Sherlock for various reasons.
Gilroy knows that defeat will cause the house to fall in around him and picking up the pieces this season will not be an easy task.

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WHEN Kerry hammered Dublin by 17 points in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final it was written off as a bad day at the office for the Dubs.

Sure, the Kingdom were always going to win the game - no matter what the hype about the Boys in Blue might have suggested - but 17 points was surely flattering. No?

Well, it turns out that 1-24 to 1-7, a joint Championship record gap between the teams, wasn’t in any way misleading.

On Sunday for the second summer game in succession the Dubs stunk up Croke Park in the first half.

Against Wexford they were clueless and leaderless for alarmingly long stretches. In the first 35 minutes they only managed two points, which is one less than they shot in the Kerry match before the break.

Around the same time as this latest Headquarters howler Kerry were putting together a marvellous, gutsy come-from-behind win over Cork, the team that many people were tipping to take Sam Maguire this year.

The All-Ireland champions may indeed be coming to the end of a glorious cycle, with five defenders on the wrong side of the 30-mark, but they are still burning bright.

So long as Paul Galvin remains involved throughout the season (though this is a big ‘if’ following a clash with the Rebels’ Eoin Cadogan highlighted on the Sunday Game at the weekend) there isn’t another team to touch them this year.

Cork are lacking the killer instinct and a forward approaching the quality of Colm Cooper to keep the scoreboard ticking over even when things aren’t going well.

It would be a truly enormous achievement for Tyrone to win back the All-Ireland after a two year break with a team still leaning on veteran warriors like Brian Dooher, Ryan McMenamin and Conor Gormley.

Mayo have fallen off the map, Galway will be worrying more about Sligo than booking hotel rooms in Citywest for September and outside of that the chasing pack disappear into the distance.

And the chasing pack is just where Dublin find themselves.

Manager Pat Gilroy said before the start of the season that his team were unlikely to win an All-Ireland this year and how right he was. The worry is that his three-year building project may not produce anything of lasting value either.

It seems as though he has finally sorted out his fullback line, but the midfield is non-existent.

The defensive system he tried during the League worked on smaller, slower pitches, but in Croke Park last Sunday players didn’t seem to know their roles. There were bodies behind the ball alright, but it didn’t prevent Wexford from scoring.

And put simply, Kerry just have better footballers than the rest.

Near the end of normal time in Sunday’s game Paul Flynn had a chance to play Bernard Brogan in for the winner but his 30-yard foot pass floated towards Wexford keeper Anthony Masterson. Had it been Declan O’Sullivan or Paul Galvin loading the bullets the pass would have been right on the money.

Brogan didn’t have his best day, kicking seven wides along with 2-4, but Gilroy should be praying that he doesn’t get injured or red carded any time soon.

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