ALL-IRELAND SFC QUALIFIER ROUND FOUR Dublin 2-14 Louth 0-13:SOME PEOPLE have to wait a lifetime for redemption. Some people have to wait until the afterlife. Louth have to wait at least another year. Their championship, cruelly, softly, ends here; Dublin's keeps on beginning again.
How much Louth’s shocking injustice of two weeks’ previous impacted on this result no one will ever know. They said, they were over it, but subconsciously the harrowing loss of the Leinster final – which they’d rightfully won – must have lingered. How much Dublin took advantage of that no one knows either, but they played this like a game they were always confident of winning.
What is certain is Dublin are a vastly improved team from that which started out in the Leinster championship – and Louth, sadly, exit a pale shadow of the team which had earlier set the Leinster championship alight.
As a contest, it was terribly disappointing. For the entire first half Dublin were the only team playing football, and while Louth inevitably improved in the second half, the outcome was never once in doubt.
In fact, the outcome looked inevitable after about five minutes. Dublin were lording midfield, with Michael Dara Macauley picking up where he left off against Armagh, and Ross McConnell out-smarting both Paddy Keenan and Brian White under the high ball. Defensively, Dublin were impermeable, and instead every attacking play came at Louth.
John O’Brien managed to stall Bernard Brogan, but others took advantage – none more impressively than full forward Eoghan O’Gara. His two first-half goals merely reflected Dublin’s ominous presence around the Louth goalmouth. Truth is they had several other chances, and ended the half with nine wides – which they might not have got away with against more lively opposition.
Indeed, Louth were dismally poor at the other end. They went 18 minutes before White knocked over their first score, from a free, and all they could add before the break were two more frees from White, late on. Dublin were coasting at 2-6 to 0-3 and it was, as they say, game over.
What was wrong with Louth? Clearly, this wasn’t the same team that had rattled Longford, Kildare, Westmeath and Meath. Manager Peter Fitzpatrick admitted as much afterwards, although he wasn’t about to pin it all on what happened against Meath:
“No, no excuses whatsoever,” he said – before adding: “I’m sure the Leinster final had some kind of a bearing but we had two weeks to get ourselves prepared. Whether it was the occasion that got to us I’m not too sure, but again, no excuses. We were beaten by a better team today.”
Louth midfielder and captain Paddy Keenan summed up their evening; marked absent for much of the first half, he at least raised a gallop in the second half, but by then Dublin were out of sight. But Keenan wasn’t blaming what had happened against Meath either: “No, I don’t think that was the losing of the game. We just never came out, never showed any fight in the first half. We did in the second half, in patches.”
Just how much this performance wins back all of Dublin’s old supporters remains to be the seen, but they had a good share of the 47,738 in attendance, and it wasn’t long before Hill 16 was singing.
Dublin’s big criticism this year has been their over-reliance on Bernard Brogan for scores; so, as if on cue, up stepped Bryan Cullen, Alan Brogan, Ross McConnell, Ger Brennan, Stephen Cluxton (with his now trademark 45s) and of course O’Gara, who finally delivered on the sort of potential we were told about.
“Eoghan has been doing that to a number of people at our training sessions,” declared manager Pat Gilroy, “and would have been in the team a lot earlier had he not been injured.”
O’Gara’s first goal, on 11 minutes, saw him run clean through the centre of the Louth defence, and although it wasn’t the sharpest of finishes, Neil Gallagher couldn’t stop it. His second goal, on 33 minutes, was more impressive; set up by Alan Brogan, O’Gara cut inside on goal from the right, and deftly finished to the net. That left Dublin 11 points clear, and there was no way Louth were going to claw that back.
The Louth forwards were choked of any clean possession (JP Rooney hardly touched the ball), with Rory O’Carroll having a big say in that. White was replaced 10 minutes into the second half, and eventually it took three of the Louth substitutes to make some impression on the scoreboard; Declan Byrne, Darren Clarke and Derek Maguire.
Although Louth actually out-scored Dublin in the second half, 10 points to eight, they never truly threatened the goal they needed, although Andy McDonnell had one half chance.
So the game closed out with Dublin demonstrating their strength in depth, bringing on Eamonn Fennell and Darren Magee at midfield (Macauley and McConnell were injured), plus forwards Paul Flynn, Conal Keaney and Tomás Quinn.
Finally, there’s a pattern starting in Dublin, and it’s starting to impress as well.
DUBLIN: 1 S Cluxton (0-2, two 45s);4 P McMahon, 3 R O'Carroll, 2 M Fitzsimons; 7 B Cahill, 6 G Brennan (0-1), 5 K Nolan; 8 MD Macauley, 9 R McConnell (0-1); 12 N Corkery, 13 D Henry, 10 B Cullen (0-3); 15 B Brogan (0-3, two frees), 14 E O'Gara (2-1), 11 A Brogan (0-1). Subs: 17 P Flynn (0-1)for Corkery (41 mins), 20 C Keaney for Henry (42 mins), 19 E Fennell for McConnell (50 mins), 29 D Magee for Macauley (54 mins), 21 T Quinn (0-1, a free)for A Brogan (59 mins).
Yellow cards: MD Macauley (17 mins), B Cahill (35 mins), R O'Carroll (48 mins).
LOUTH: 1 N Gallagher; 7 J O'Brien, 3 D Finnegan, 2 E McAuley; 5 R Finnegan, 6 M Fanning, 17 S Fitzpatrick; 8 P Keenan (0-2), 9 B White (0-3, all frees); 12 A Reid, 10 A McDonnell (0-1), 11 M Brennan; 13 C Judge, 14 S Lennon (0-1), 15 JP Rooney. Subs: 24 D Clarke (0-3, two frees)for Judge (34 mins), 21 D Byrne (0-2)for R Finnegan (34 mins), 25 R Carroll for White (46 mins), 22 D Maguire (0-1)for Rooney (59 mins), 20 D Crilly for Fitzpatrick (62 mins).
Yellow cards: N Gallagher (10 mins); D Finnegan (53 mins).
Referee: P McEnaney(Monaghan).
