TWO days after last year’s All-Ireland final, Jim Gavin held his hands up. He wanted to come clean and admit to the footballing world what everyone else already knew: a lack of balance between attacking and defensive football cost Dublin the All-Ireland semi-final against Donegal. There. Gavin said it. It was out in the open, like the first stage of a healing process.
Gavin was adamant that Dublin wouldn’t stray too far from their attacking philosophy but he still accepted that an over-eager devotion to that belief system allowed Donegal to exploit it.
“I accept full responsibility for the philosophy, for the attacking style we play and sometimes for the vulnerability that it brings and the unpredictability of it,” said Gavin. “One result won’t change Dublin’s core philosophy but it’s been a learning experience.”
That process began during the spring. Dublin were experimenting with different styles but they were more defensively minded. In four of their first six League matches, Dublin only registered scores of 1-9, 1-10, 2-10 and 0-8. After struggling against Tyrone’s ultra defensive set-up, they had even more difficulties against Derry in what looked like the game from the apocalypse.
Nailing Monaghan for 1-22 in round seven suggested Dublin were finally beginning to balance the equation. Yet when they only scraped over the line by one point against Monaghan in the League semi-final a week later, former Mayo manager James Horan hinted at Dublin’s continuing search for that correct balance.
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“Their attackers turned back too often, when they should have been cutting inside and taking on their men,” said Horan. “They’re thinking safety first so they need to look at the balance between finding solidity and not losing their real threat, which is attacking. They’re almost overdoing the defensive side of it a touch.”
After blitzing Cork in the League final, Dublin looked to have finally cracked the code. Entering the championship with the best defensive record in the league further underlined how Dublin had developed their overall structure, and combined it with greater tactical fluidity and adaptability.
A reviewed attacking style was also critical to finding that right balance, and in trying to break down a massed defence. Jason Sherlock was added to their backroom team as a forwards coach. Mark Ingle, a basketball coach, was also brought in for a few sessions. Ingle’s role was minimal but Sherlock has a huge basketball background and his influence has been obvious.
Dublin have worked hard on outside shooting, setting screens for players on the ball to shoot, for creating the opening for a free player to get off a shot among a mass of bodies. As a player, one of Sherlock’s greatest qualities was his movement and ability to find space, which in turn created space for others. Now, Dublin’s forwards, especially the corner-forwards, are playing wider, and working defenders far more. That criss-crossing running also gives opportunities to create more screens for the outside shooters.
“You can see Jason’s influence,” says Ciarán Whelan. “Fellas are making way more runs now to pull defenders out of position and create more space, especially down that central channel for [Diarmuid] Connolly, [Paul] Flynn and [Ciaran] Kilkenny. You also see Bernard [Brogan] and Dean Rock playing very deep and wide to try and create space for runners coming through.”
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Despite Rock’s physique, the loss of Eoghan O’Gara has impacted on Dublin’s option of playing long, diagonal ball into the square. Dealing with massed defences further forced Dublin to become measured and controlled. In the Leinster final against Westmeath, they were clearly road-testing a more deliberate way of playing against a massed defence.
Despite their attacking brilliance, last year’s defeat by Donegal forced Dublin into looking harder at themselves, to demand more from their collective talent. “Dublin had to evolve because they had no choice,” says Mossy Quinn. “They were always gung-ho in attack but that often meant carrying ball into too many bodies. Now, they’re a lot more patient.
“If Dublin went down the right wing in the past, and it wasn’t on, someone would have still often kept going and tried to force the shot. Now they’re not afraid to come back out. You see Diarmuid (Connolly) in particular trying these 40-yard crossfield passes to change the angle of attack. They’re looking to shift the defence across and create that mismatch.”
Trying to remain unpredictable, while still retaining their attacking identity, and most natural instincts, has been the key challenge. Becoming more measured, more patient, hasn’t unloaded bullets from their gun chamber. The gun is still always cocked. They’re still itching to always pull the trigger. They’ve just had to review their battle strategies from the army which mowed down all before them in 2013, and in most of 2014.
“Dublin had earned the right to that mentality of all-out-attack but they’ve had to mix it up from the 2013 and 2014 versions,” says Quinn. “Are they a better forward unit now? Diarmuid is at the peak of his powers and he makes Dublin a better forward line. Bernard [Brogan] is scoring more heavily from play. Dean Rock brings that balance. So yeah, in terms of how they can hurt teams, This attack is slightly better.”
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Now, for the first time all season, the hard paper has been set. Let the exam begin.