FOR a moment, let’s focus on the headline before we decide whether we’ve the stomach to burrow below to the small print. Dublin and Kerry will meet in the All-Ireland final that most football fans wanted before this afternoon and most everybody was praying for by the close of business at Croke Park.
There’s no way of sugar-coating the conclusion that Donegal’s progress to the final would have been a disaster for the Association’s show-piece. There’s a huge amount to admire in the way Jimmy McGuinness has brought his side in from the margins this season but even the most benevolent analysis of their set-up is that it is anti-football.
McGuinness himself is a very beguiling and decent individual who cares more about lifting the spirit of a county – which he has done – that fretting over the aesthetics of success. However, Donegal’s is a flawed game plan on several levels, and not all of them emotional. For starters, it is unsustainable for 70 minutes and ultimately that is what cost them an unlikely place in the final against Kerry.
Dublin’s athleticism will trouble any side in the country and McGuinness must have feared that his side would eventually go weak at the knees. The Dubs are just the side to capitalise on a physically spent opposition.
Just as well. It’s not as if Dublin displayed any tactical nous for much of this semi-final. In the end they literally outlasted Donegal.
Close to half time this afternoon, Diarmuid Connolly kicked Dublin’s eighth wide of a brutal first half. He had 14 Donegal players for company inside their own 45m line. 14 no less. The Ulster champions harried and hit with a manic intensity in that first period, reducing Dublin to a pair of pointed frees. The impossible trick, however, was maintaining it for seventy minutes.
That Connolly’s 58th minute dismissal was hardly felt by a resurgent Dublin in the last quarter underlined just how spent Donegal were.
If their attacking tactics left something to be desired, Dublin’s substitutions worked a treat, especially Kevin McManamon, who looks odds-on now to win a final start with Connolly suspended. It was his point in the 59th minute that finally brought Dublin level. Two minutes later another sub, Eoghan O’Gara’s deflected shot found its way to Bryan Cullen for the lead point. The Hill smelt blood.
Donegal’s lost verve wasn’t all down to fatigue. Karl Lacey was forced off after 41 minutes and with him went a chunk of their ability to breach Dublin’s defensive wall. While Colm McFadden was a willing and able lone attacker for much of the game he will look back on a wasted goal chance early in the second half with a degree of frustration. Though they point gave Donegal their biggest lead of their afternoon (0-5 to 0-2), the goal would have provided a buffer and proved a rejuvenating elixir for the second period.
Much of it was spent in their own half of the field, but Donegal are used to that. What they had not met thus far was a team of Dublin’s sustained intensity. The watching Kerry manager Jack O’Connor will hardly be surprised by it, but his ageing defence will struggle to shackle the capital’s finest.
Scorers for Dublin: B Brogan (0-4 frees), S Cluxton (0-2, 1 free, 1 45), B Cullen, K McManamom (0-1 each).
Scorers for Donegal: C McFadden (0-4, 2 fs), R Bradley, K Cassidy (0-1 each).
DUBLIN: S Cluxton; C O’Sullivan, R O’Carroll, M Fitzsimons; J McCarthy, G Brennan, K Nolan; MD McAuley, D Bastick; P Flynn, B Cahill, B Cullen; A Brogan, D Connolly, B Brogan.
Subs: P McMahon for O’Carroll (27), K McManamon for Cahill (ht), E O’Gara for McCarthy (60), E Fennell for Bastick (63), R McConnell for Flynn (64).
DONEGAL: P Durcan; K Lacey, E Magee, N Magee; K Cassidy, P McGrath, A Thompson; R Kavanagh, R Bradley; M McHugh, C Toye, D Walsh; P McBrearty, M Murphy, C McFadden.
Donegal subs: M Hegarty for Toye (ht), M Boyle for Lacey (42), M McElhinney for Hegarty (63), P McBrearty for Boyle (66).
Referee: M Deegan (Laois).
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/DFFsezH7MDQ/post.aspx
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