Dublin can repeat, but not if it's the same again

ON GAELIC GAMES:Pat Gilroy's men had to defy precedent to beat Kerry in last year's final, so they know just what they're up against now

THERE’S A paradox in Dublin’s football championship challenge this year. Although the team finally broke through last September to win the All-Ireland title for the first time since 1995, this season starts more uncertainly for them than any other for 16 years.

A year ago it was business as usual as the team lined up at the start aspiring – admittedly with a little more conviction than previously – to break through. Having achieved that, they now face the inescapable consequence: trying to retain their title for the first time in 35 years.

What incrementally burgeoning confidence Pat Gilroy and his team brought to the task of lifting the Sam Maguire for the first time since 1995, the task in hand is nearly as daunting.

Only once in the last 20 years has a county successfully defended the title and few see Dublin as one of the outstanding champions of the past two decades. The weight of history comes underwritten by all the cautionary warnings against losing appetite and drive.

Gilroy was surprisingly open about these concerns during the county’s fitful league campaign, during which he ascribed nearly all of their poor displays to a lack of the necessary intensity, without which he bluntly declared Dublin were just another team.

How hard can it be to win back-to-back All-Irelands? Kerry accomplished it in 2006-07 but with a change of management in between and that was the only incidence of the achievement during the seven entire years when Kerry and Tyrone shared out all available Sam Maguires. Mickey Harte’s sides never managed it despite three All-Irelands.

The last time the same individual oversaw the capture and retention of the title was 22 years ago when Billy Morgan’s Cork did it for the first time in the county footballers’ history.

Morgan says he was conditioned by the regret surrounding his playing days when a powerful Cork side looked certain to put All-Irelands back to back but were surprised by Dublin and before they knew it, overtaken by the emerging force of Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry.

According to Morgan, Cork “blew it by over-celebrating” and a generation later he built a team with an emphasis on dedication and leadership. Their resolve was tested by the successive disappointments against Meath but it didn’t kill them, it made them stronger and they delivered. The manager continues to believe that winning the All-Ireland was the initial motivation for the 1989 success but a year later the desire to beat Meath – who had defeated them in 1987 and ’88 – became a driving force, which was ultimately fulfilled.

Maybe that should have been Cork’s motivation last year: to beat Kerry and record a first Croke Park championship victory over their neighbours in eight meetings. The problem was the wheels on Cork’s 2011 campaign came off, as an extensive injury list took its toll and they ended their season in the quarter-finals, well beaten by Mayo.

Kerry’s successful defence in 2007 was managed by Pat O’Shea, taking over from Jack O’Connor. His belief is any team hoping to win twice must introduce variation into their game, some new element or detail, and he accepts the change of management on his appointment might have been part of that process.

But O’Shea also experimented with one of the most recognisable strengths of the team by re-deploying Colm Cooper in a deeper role, familiar from Dr Crokes in Killarney where O’Shea was a club-mate and later manager.

O’Shea makes two points about retaining an All-Ireland.

“No matter how well champions start the season – and Dublin started very well at the weekend – there comes a stage where for whatever reason the team under-performs. Everything can be going really well but then there comes this really average performance and managers will say: ‘We never saw it coming’.

“I’m impressed with how Pat Gilroy has dealt with the pressure on them to win the All-Ireland again. He’s spoken about how hard it is to recapture the intensity but he hasn’t just been negative and has also emphasised that the confidence gained from winning last year can help to balance the negatives.”

He also makes the point that there is the potential to freshen the team, with Ciarán Kilkenny, the prodigiously talented dual player and under-21 All-Ireland winner last month who starts his Leaving Cert today but will be available by the end of the month. It’s an interesting echo of the All-Ireland victory in 1995 when Jason Sherlock, also just a year out of minor, brought a tactical variation to the team that made a significant difference.

“Pat Gilroy has said that they have no secrets and are one of the most analysed teams around. Having a player like Ciarán Kilkenny is valuable because there’s no video of him playing for the seniors and if he fits into place it adds an unfamiliar dimension to the team.”

Dublin have no ancillary motivation like Cork had in wanting to beat Meath 22 years ago. Defeats by any county that ended their summer more than once in the past 11 years – Kerry (four times), Armagh and Tyrone (twice each) – have been avenged during the past two seasons.

The acknowledged difficulty in winning again has become an opportunity for Dublin. They were outsiders last year and will be again this time around because of how hard it is to achieve a double.

O’Shea’s observations are, however, illuminating. The last decade during which the qualifiers have been in operation has made it hard for teams simply because the best teams around are generally in attendance by the August bank holiday quarter-finals, the now accepted starting point of the serious phase of the championship.

Unbeaten provincial champions line up against teams with momentum from the rebound of whatever defeat was suffered earlier in the summer. It’s when the pressure builds and cracks invariably appear. Significantly or not, it is in the quarter-finals that reigning champions have come to grief more often than at any other stage and only Tyrone in 2006 failed to get that far in their title defence.

From the quarter-finals on there is no room for error and defeat is terminal. When O’Shea talks about teams who didn’t see it coming, he means at this stage when there is no comeback.

To win last year, Dublin had to defy a history that showed the county beating Kerry in a final only once in 88 championships. History is against them again this year but they’re used to that.

smoran@irishtimes.com