Dublin's draw with Roscommon in their All-Ireland series Group 3 tie has raised fresh questions about their All-Ireland prospects.
Winning run ended
Dublin’s draw with Roscommon yesterday meant that, for the first time since their “startled earwigs” quarter-final capitulation against Kerry back in 2009, they failed to win an All-Ireland series game prior to the semi-final stage.
With a perfect record in the 2010 qualifiers and every quarter-final and ‘Super 8s’ game in the interim, that amounted to 18 straight victories prior to yesterday.
Two of those 18 were group stage games against Roscommon, which they won by 14 and 18 points in 2018 and ‘19 respectively, albeit the Rossies entered those games somewhat demoralised by defeats earlier in the round robin stage and very much on the back foot.
Granted, they lost the Connacht semi-final to Galway last month but they had five weeks to prepare for the round robin phase and manager Davy Burke recognised that this Dublin team wasn’t one to be cowed by compared to previous iterations.
They went after the Dubs and were very nearly rewarded with their first Championship victory at Croke Park since 1980.
Favourites tag more on reputation than form?
After holders Kerry suffered a rare home defeat to Mayo, Dublin were installed as All-Ireland favourites.
It was also widely assumed that they would make light work of Roscommon, but based on what exactly?
Dublin didn’t exactly rip it up in Division Two and, based on the rankings from this year’s League, Roscommon, in third, were the highest rated team that they’ve played this year and had already beaten Mayo (ranked first) and been highly competitive against Galway (ranked second) in Connacht.
Managers often go out of their way to play down their team’s favourites’ tag, but it was hard to argue with the logic behind Dublin boss Dessie Farrell’s comments after the Roscommon stalemate.
He said: “I think the idea of us being favourites based on, you know… we’ve had two decent performances all year, if we’re being frank about it. Maybe three.
“You know, operating in Division Two doesn’t tell you an awful lot. The Leinster Championship is very much a mixed bag, and today and more games like today will tell us where we’re really at, and make the bookies’ job a little bit easier, I’d imagine.”
Diminished scoring power
“It’s been a while since I saw Dublin score only 1-11 in Croke Park,” said former Kerry star Colm Cooper on the Sunday Game highlights show.
Well, not really. They posted the same tally just two games previously in the Leinster semi-final against Kildare, albeit in the shape of 0-14.
Con O’Callaghan and Paul Mannion, probably their two most potent attacking weapons, started both of those games but only managed 0-5 from play between across both of them.
Of course, Dublin scored freely against Laois and Louth but as Burke noted yesterday: “I think Kildare gave everyone the template there a few weeks ago on how maybe to frustrate them. Louth gave us all an exhibition on what not to do here.”
Closing the game out
Having overturned a four-point half-time deficit to lead by two late on, Dubin were pegged back for the draw and, if anything, Roscommon looked the more likely to snatch a late winner.
Successfully closing out games was arguably their biggest calling card during their zenith under Jim Gavin, but less so in the last couple of seasons.
They disintegrated when finally relinquishing their All-Ireland title against Mayo two years ago having led that game comfortably and they lacked composure at critical stages in the subsequent League campaign which ended in relegated, particularly in the closing round against Monaghan.
Kerry then came back off the ropes to win last year’s All-Ireland semi-final at the death.
Against that, they held off Kildare (twice), Cork and Clare in tight finishes this year, but Derry had too much coming down the stretch in Celtic Park. And teams are getting closer to Dublin more often now.
Inconsistency
There have been occasions this year where it looks to have clicked for Dublin, but they’ve struggled to put a run of games together.
That’s been particularly noticeable in the Championship, where runaway victories over Laois and Louth have now been followed by uninspiring displays against Kildare and Roscommon respectively.
With Kildare next up in Kilkenny next Saturday, and their manager Glenn Ryan’s comments about the home comforts that Dublin enjoy at Croke Park still reasonably fresh, it will be interesting to see can reach top gear again and, more importantly, stay there.
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