So Dublin are fast becoming the Kenyans of Gaelic football. They run alongside their opposition without breaking sweat, then very suddenly stretch them out with such a killer surge in pace that they end up laps ahead. Winning made easy, as the Kenyans like to say.
That was the assessment of Aidan O'Brien, the Wexford manager, after Dublin ran down their latest opponents with considerable ease. Indeed after their 16-point winning margin, more than double Wexford's score, the Kenyan comparison was justified: if this had been a distance race, Dublin would have lapped the entire field.
That surge in Dublin’s pace may be assisted by the quality of their substitutes, but for O’Brien, it’s their innate athleticism that ultimately gives them an edge – as if they were indeed born and raised at altitude, and ran several miles to and from school.
“A lot is made of Dublin’s fitness,” said O’Brien. “And I would make the analogy of a group of athletes, lining up for the Olympic final of the 5,000 metres. They’re all in pristine, peak fitness. And yet some of them will be overlapped by others. Because there is fitness, but there is also innate athleticism. And I think that’s what Dublin currently have, a phenomenal athleticism, right around the field.”
Heroic defending
O'Brien's team did their best to stay with Dublin, and he acknowledged the "heroic" defending of his team in the first half. The problem was trying to maintain that all through the second half – especially with players like Cormac Costello coming off the Dublin bench and scoring 1-5.
“Their bench are coming into games at times when a lot of the damage is done,” added O’Brien. “The game has been secured almost. That’s obviously a huge addition, a huge help to them, to have players on the bench of the quality of the guys that we have. I mean, that’s the area of their set up that would make you most envious.”
“But I’m more disappointed with the way we performed, than the result. We seemed to play like a team that had huge expectations of them . . it seemed to me we were shackled a lot of the time by our nervousness, anxiety, or fear, perhaps, of the opposition. As a consequence we had a lot of mistakes.”
Their stride
The hardest question Jim Gavin (below) faced was why his team took so long to find their stride. Gavin said "at half-time there was only a kick of the ball between the teams" but he didn't feel Dublin were holding anything back.
“I actually thought we started quite well in the game. We didn’t take some of the chances created but again we’re very pleased, from a coach’s perspective, that some of the plays and moves came off. That’s very positive. We created goal chances but there was some excellent defending by Wexford. Technically they tackled the ball very well.”
“So we were creating those chances, and it was just a case of trying to have a better shot selection in the second half.”
Gavin doesn’t do the singling out of any players, and not even Costello’s performance was going to win any special praise.
“We’re really pleased with anybody who’s come up from the under-21 ranks. They’re all putting a serious shift in, they’re very diligent, very committed to the county and we’re pleased for all of them.
“But there’s a lot of competition and they’re trying their best but collectively they have bought into that ethos. Again, whether they start or finish, through their optic, they’re just happy that the team wins and from management position it makes my life a little bit easier in that regard.
“Because whether a player starts or finishes the game is irrelevant to us. It’s a privilege for them to get the jersey in the first place and represent the county. They just need to try to be the best they can be when they get on the field on play. Dean (Rock) played very well in the first-half, he was clinical with his frees. But we look at the totality of the squad, and try to maximize the totality of their strengths.”
