Jim Gavin’s championship record as Dublin manager is near-perfect. But, because of the excellence his teams have displayed, we are naturally fascinated at the times they have been challenged.
Donegal in 2014 will probably go down as one of the most famous semi-finals of the decade. We’ve spoken about it at length over the past four years, with Jim McGuinness giving us all the details of their preparation and execution in his autobiography.
Mayo’s efforts in 2016 and 2017, as well as Kerry’s near-miss in 2016, will also live on in infamy. Instead of success, though, both counties pushed Dublin all the way and ended up coming up short.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice and Lee Keegan were key personalities behind those turbulent days for the Dubs and they joined us on OTB AM this morning to tell us how to give yourself a competitive way to challenge the best team in the country.
Cluxton’s kickouts
Fitzmaurice’s main piece of advice is getting on as much ball as possible against the Dubs, which means reducing Dublin’s success rate on kick-outs at both ends of the pitch.
“You need to get after Stephen Cluxton if you can,” Fitzmaurice says. “Tyrone did quite well in the closing stages against them in Omagh in that regard, but it’s a very different ball game in Croke Park compared to Omagh and they’ll have to get their own kick-out right.”
“One thing Niall Morgan does have in his own locker is he does have kind of a long, booming kick-out, out over the top, that if Dublin do really press up, as they can do, that Tyrone may get some joy from that.”
That All-Ireland semi-final in 2016 saw a more extreme kick-out policy from Kerry, according to Fitzmaurice:
“We practiced that kick-out a lot in the lead-in to that game... We had two banks of four up front and we’d another bank of four in the middle of the field, then.”
The caveat is always there, though, that Stephen Cluxton will figure out a way to beat such an intense zonal system. It’s high risk, high reward stuff and something Mayo studied a lot, Keegan tells us.
“We learned hugely from what Eamonn had done” said the Westport man. “It’s something that we experienced quite a lot in the finals, that Dublin had those two banks of four pushing up and, you know, we did get a bit of joy at times. Again, I don’t think you could sustain it for a full 70 minutes against a Dublin team that have a savage bench coming on to finish off the job. It’s very much around picking your times and moments when to do it.”
The running game
While 2016 showed Kerry going for the jugular on Dublin kick-outs, Fitzmaurice says they played a more measured approach than usual in more recent encounters. He also explained how to get at Dublin from open play:
“I think what they are vulnerable to is teams running at them, as all teams are because it’s something that’s hard to defend. Mayo have had good success with it, Tyrone in league games as well.
“You’ve to get the Dublin forwards running the other way. They will work, they are honest players but it’s not really what they want to be doing... get all of them fellahs going the other way and you’re starting to play the game a small bit on your terms.”
When it comes to this running game that may cause Dublin problems, Keegan believes Tyrone do have the fitness and the capacity to cause some problems:
“I do like the fact that Tyrone are very adept at running the ball, they’re very good at it and, particularly at times, if their shooting had been a bit better against Monaghan in the semi-final, it could have been a six or seven point win, instead it was a lot tighter game than it should have been.
“I think they can have that little bit of risk – reward, because in Colm Cavanagh they have a sweeper there that is the best sweeper in the game and we’ve seen that over the championship how important he is for Tyrone and how well he reads the game.”
Man -marking
Lee Keegan is well-placed to talk about targeting an individual on the Dublin team. He’s got to know Diarmuid Connolly quite well on the pitch, but it was Ciaran Kilkenny who he was detailed to mark last year:
“We planned without Connolly last year, to be brutally honest. We very much detailed maybe Kilkenny as the main ball-winner there last year in terms of, you know, I’d suppose he was known as the Quarterback role.
“Two totally different players, but two huge influential guys for Jim Gavin and how they play the game for Dublin and, particularly this year, Ciaran Kilkenny looks like more of a scoring threat. He’s scored something like 2-21 in Championship this year so that’s been a big feature.
“I’d love to have been marking (Kilkenny) this weekend because, again, last year he played maybe more of a safer role and as more of a creator than scorer. He’s got that bit of scoring edge back this year so definitely would have been a tough challenge.”
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