GAELIC GAMES NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE LAUNCH: Ian O'Riordanmeets the managers as Dublin and Tyrone get the GAA's 125th anniversary celebrations in motion
ON AUGUST 16th last Pat Gilroy sat in Croke Park and witnessed one of the most painful defeats for Dublin football in many years – beaten out the gate, effectively, 3-14 to 1-8, by a Tyrone team that carried this momentum to another All-Ireland title.
No way could Gilroy have imagined that he’d be back, just over five months later, against the same opposition, as the new Dublin football manager. Certainly Saturday evening’s rematch with Tyrone is a fitting starting point to the 2009 National Football League and to the GAA’s 125th celebrations but as the starting point for Gilroy’s managerial career it has to be a little bit frightening.
And at times during yesterday’s league launch Gilroy did look uneasy, only this was possibly more to do with being the centre of attention than anything else. Gilroy is clearly not particularly comfortable with all the fuss that comes with being Dublin football manager, although this should have no bearing on his ability to handle the job, at least not yet anyway.
“I’ve said it before that anything that could have gone wrong for Dublin did go wrong,” he said when asked about his memories of that last day in Croke Park. “From the game itself to the weather, with balls slipping out of guys hands that just wouldn’t be the norm. And it just got worse and worse.
“And anything that Tyrone tried went right. Some of the points they kicked that day were phenomenal. But we’ve faced up to it as group, talked about it. It happened. You can’t ignore it. And you have to try to learn from it, or else you won’t improve.
“So we’re just looking forward to Saturday now. We’ve been training hard for three weeks. It could be a slight disadvantage that we haven’t had a competitive game yet but we’ve played a lot of practice games amongst ourselves, so we’re not that worried about it.”
Gilroy hardly needed reminding that Dublin have been knocking on the door of an All-Ireland final for at least the past six years.
“It is about trying to take it to the next level,” he agreed, “and I think for this team that means qualifying for an All-Ireland final.
“Dublin have probably played some of the best performances of any team over the last four years, on occasions. So consistency of that performance is the big thing, and if we can bring that to the party then that could be the difference.
“But it’s not a very old squad, not by any means. There are some guys that have played a lot of football but are still only in their late 20s, and only coming to the peak.
“You do look as well at teams like Tyrone, because you always have to look at the teams doing well, that are winning. I think with Tyrone, it’s obviously about work-rate. It’s absolutely phenomenal. They never stop, whether it’s corner back or corner forward, working their legs off. I think that’s the big secret to their success. At this level as well it’s about having some amount of killer instinct, and a lot of these Dublin players actually do have it. But it’s about having it every time they go to play, applying it all the time, that’s the trick.”
When Mickey Harte talked about his aspirations for the year ahead he also mentioned consistency, applying killer instinct, or whatever it is, at all times, because in the past Tyrone have had problems sustaining the level of success of the previous year.
“We had a very important latter half of last year,” said the Tyrone manager. “There are defining moments in your career, your life, whatever, and I think last June was one for this Tyrone team. They could have disappeared then, but turned around the result of the Ulster quarter-final. I think that has given the players a new sense of belief and confidence. But carrying that, and carrying the tag of champions, is the challenge now. That will unfold pretty quickly. Because we’ve Dublin first, then Kerry, and then Galway.
“But I am pretty optimistic that there is a serious thirst for more.
“Players, from what I can see, want to get back into action. They’ve had their time out, their socialising. There is good competition for places, and the return of Stephen O’Neill has been a huge boost to us. Eoin Mulligan is in better form at this time of year than he has been for some time. We’ve a few new kids on the block as well looking promising. But we know as well that one or two wrong results and the whole landscape can change.”
In contrast to Gilroy, Harte was far more buoyant about the big-time occasion of Saturday’s game, which like the opening floodlight match in Croke Park in 2007, promises to be quite a spectacle: “We’re a privileged county, to have been involved in the first floodlight game, and now this. It’s a great opportunity, to play against Dublin, but also in a full house in Croke Park. That’s an experience you usually only get in an All-Ireland final.
“It’s another historical occasion, but to really enjoy it, you want to win. There’s a lot of razzmatazz around Saturday’s game, and that’s right. But there’s two league points as well, and it’s the football that really counts. Dublin are also still hurt from that last day, and we know that wasn’t a true reflection of them.
“We’re playing a Dublin team that won four Leinster titles in the last four years, will always be around the top table, and will always be very hard to beat.”
Both Dublin and Tyrone will be without several first-choice players – with Dublin missing Alan Brogan and Tomás Quinn, while Tyrone are without All-Ireland winning medallists Brian Dooher, Conor Gormley, Damien McCaul, Ciarán Gourley and Dermot Carlin. Marty Swift, who was on the panel early last year before leaving through work commitments, will be among the newcomers.
