Abject Dublin present complex puzzle for Cunningham to solve

Tipperary 1-23 Dublin 0-12

Dublin’s capacity for dousing the nascent flames of their followers’ hopes remains unmatched. On Saturday night in a wintry Semple Stadium, it could not have been clearer that the foremost effect of winning the Walsh Cup in January was to fool Ger Cunningham’s side into believing they were going somewhere. There was damn little evidence of it here.

When Dublin lose, they do it in style. This wasn’t the first flame-out these players have endured over the years and it’s hard to make a case for it being the last. No other team in Division 1A has had to put up with as many double-digit beatings in the league over the past five seasons – this was their fourth since 2012. Tipp had 13 points to spare in the end but it could easily have been more – Michael Ryan’s side shot 10 wides in the first half alone and 14 in total.

This is looking like an increasingly tough gig for Cunningham. Try as he has to freshen up his panel, the only new face that has looked anyway comfortable is centre back Chris Crummy. And even at that, he is an answer to a question they weren’t asking, already having an All Star centre back at their disposal in Liam Rushe.

With Danny Sutcliffe sitting in the Setanta Sports studio on Saturday night, Dublin’s familiar old failings were writ large. It took them 14 minutes to muster up a score from play, a brilliant Dotsy O’Callaghan effort from out on the sideline that was all his own work. Paul Ryan missed three handy frees and was substituted at half-time. Three of the starting forwards didn’t see out the game. We asked Cunningham afterwards if the scale of the defeat had shocked him.

“Shocked? No. No. More disappointed. We were thinking that we had a good pre-season preparation. But this is a different level. It’s a higher level completely. The conditions weren’t good for both sides but they adapted quicker.

Challenge

“They were very hungry. Obviously, under new management, there’s guys out to impress. You’re playing one of the top maybe two teams in the country. That’s the challenge.

“But we came down, we thought we prepared well and we wanted to put up a better challenge than that. But we’ll have to move on quickly. Players especially, their heads could be spinning after losing a game like that. Maybe ours as well. Maybe we need to reflect on it ourselves, as to what happened and why we played so disappointingly. It might be best to hold tough for a day or two and then discuss it.”

“We have to rebound. We’re not going to lie down and we’re not going to hide away. We were well beaten tonight. We lost two league points but we have two more to play for next Saturday night and we’ll have to rebound.”

For Tipp, you wouldn't say it was a seamless transition from the Eamon O'Shea era to Mick Ryan's but it will do for starters. They got out to an early lead, with Jason Forde in summer form despite the quagmire.

They were noticeably more direct with the ball, moving it quickly into the forward line without necessarily worrying too much about being pinpoint with it. Forde had 1-3 scored by half-time, 1-2 of it coming directly from ghosting in behind dropping ball and snaffling up the break.

His goal on 13 minutes was the stand-out, a dead-eyed finish after latching on to a Darren Gleeson puck-out that squirted his way from a cluster of hurleys on the Dublin 45.

Nuisance

With Conor Kenny making a useful nuisance of himself at the edge of the square and the McGrath brothers gradually finding their feet on the soft ground, Tipp led by 1-9 to 0-3 at the break. Dublin came out to save a bit of face in the second half and matched the home side point for point for a while.

But the margin never fell below seven points and when Ryan threw Bubbles O’Dwyer on for the last 12 minutes, the crowd favourite duly filled his boots with three crisp points from three shots at the posts. By that point, Dublin had long given up the ghost.

“You certainly couldn’t be dilly-dallying around with the ball, putting your skill on show,” said Ryan afterwards of his side’s direct style of play on the night.

“But look, that directness led to the first goal. We’ll take that any time. We got a run on Dublin and a few of those late-on scores. If the game was tight they may not have come as easily.”

A fairly sizeable ‘if’, with Dublin in so abject a mood.

TIPPERARY: D Gleeson; Cl Barrett, T Hamill, M Cahill; B Maher, J Barry, P Maher (0-2); M Breen, D Quinn; D McCormack, P Maher, J Forde (1-5); N McGrath (0-2), C Kenny (0-3), J McGrath (0-7, five frees). Subs: D Fitzell (0-1) for P Maher (47 mins), J Gallagher for Breen (57 mins), J O'Dwyer (0-3) for McCormack (58 mins), J Meagher for B Maher (66 mins), L Ryan for Quinn (67 mins).

DUBLIN: C Dooley; J Boland, C O'Callaghan, O Gough; E O'Donnell, C Crummy, S Barrett; N McMorrow (0-2), John McCaffrey; D Plunkett (0-1), E Dillon (0-1), D Treacy (0-3, frees); D O'Callaghan (0-1), Paul Ryan (0-1, free), Mark Schutte (0-1). Subs: Colm Cronin (0-1) for Ryan (half-time), D O'Connell (0-1) for Plunkett (48 mins), O O'Rorke for O'Callaghan (59 mins), F McGibb for McCaffrey (63 mins).

Referee: Colm Lyons (Cork)