DRAWING conclusions about the All-Ireland senior football championship in April is meant to be a sign of naivety. This year is different: not drawing conclusions in April is a sign of delusion.
Feel free to get carried as far downstream with the hype as you like. Dublin are by far the likeliest winners of Sam Maguire and it will take a once-in-a-generation performance to stop them.
It is hard not to feel that they have been toying with us this spring; in every game they have shown us great weakness, but it is a masquerade, exposed by their utter humiliation of Cork in the second half of the league semi-final. When Dublin strike top form, there is not a team in Ireland that can match them over 70 minutes.
A recap on what happened: after 39 minutes, Cork were 10 points ahead. From that point, Dublin scored 2-13 and conceded two points. It is staggering that this can happen in a football match between two of the best teams in the country, that one can concede a score every two minutes and fall victim to a 17-point mauling in less than half a game.
Cork could point to the absence of Eoin Cadogan, or the inexplicable award of a penalty for Dublin’s second goal, but they would be lying to themselves. Dublin began the game without six of the team that won the All-Ireland last year. Ger Brennan, Jack McCaffrey and Cian O’Sullivan will improve them substantially, before we even get to Paul Mannion and Cormac Costello.
What makes the win more impressive than who it was achieved without, is who it was achieved with: Nicky Devereaux, Declan O’Mahony, Jason Whelan and Davy Byrne, for example, got significant time.
They might make a lot of inter-county sides but we will be surprised if any of them are on the field when the fat meets the flames this August and September.
That is how Dublin have been playing the league; picking teams that are far from their strongest, but that they feel will be good enough to win. It did not work in the first clash with Cork, backfired badly in Derry, should have burnt them against Mayo, almost cost them in Omagh.
Even their victories, prior to Sunday, have been unimpressive: Kerry edged, an arm-wrestle in Mullingar, six goal chances coughed up in the canter against Kildare.
Cork’s Jamie O'Sullivan and Kevin McManamon of DublinIn other words, they have played in fits and stops, showing something close to their best only in the second half, and yet they will surely win the league.
We are in the process of picking our best XV of the league at Irish Post towers and it says a lot that no Dublin player has been consistent enough to be certain of a place — Kevin McManamon was the only one, but he was off-form on Sunday — and yet Dublin will most likely win the competition.
But there is proof now that last year’s energy is still available to them. Michael Daragh Macauley is a prime example; in and out all spring, imperious when Dublin went through the gears on Sunday, by some distance the man of the match.
Even the players that would have been viewed as potential liabilities a few years ago are becoming strong points. Diarmuid Connolly is the obvious example, but against Cork, Philip McMahon showed that he might be on a similar path.
McMahon cost Dublin in Celtic Park; here, he gave the best performance we have seen from him in sky blue, second only to Macauley in the ranks of Dublin’s best performers.
Jim Gavin is left with all of the problems that managers want, and of course benefits from knowing that Dublin play the rest of the season on their home ground, a ridiculous situation unparalleled in any sport I can think of.
Although it is not right, it hardly makes a difference, for they would beat their likely opponents Laois and Longford or Wexford no matter where the game was played.
If Cork, so dominant against Kerry in the previous game, and buoyed by a fourth Munster U21 title running, could not offer serious competition, it is difficult to work out who will.
Mayo are probably closest, of course, and their approach of trying to stifle Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs to force an aerial contest is surely the best hope, for allowing Macauley and O’Sullivan the opportunity to suicide.
Donegal or Tyrone might just have the self-belief and the firepower, but both will have a job even reaching autumn. This is further evidence of Dublin’s dominance, for they have turned their own province into a one-horse race.
After they tangle with Derry, they may not have another even close to serious test until the All-Ireland semi-final, unless Meath make the Leinster final and bring pitchforks, or the quarter-final draw is unkind.
Cork now kick their heels for 10 weeks, another symptom of Croke Park’s inability to run a balanced competition. We will have to be happy with interesting games that won’t affect the race for Sam between now and August, such as the U21 semi-finals and final.
Cavan are not making many friends beyond their borders at that grade this year, but 31 counties will still hope they can win their semi-final against Dublin. The last thing the country needs is yet more underage All-Ireland medals in the metropolitan arsenal.
