It was one of those days borrowed from another era in the big house, Stephen Cluxton nailing kickouts and Glenn Ryan reheating Gaelic football’s great existential question– how neutral a venue really is Croke Park? The more things change, and all that.
Cluxton made his first appearance between the posts for Dublin since their 2020 All-Ireland final victory over Mayo, the Covid-impacted season when the decider took place on December 19th, all of 862 days previously.
“I thought he played well,” said Dessie Farrell afterwards. “Obviously we’ve had challenges with goalkeepers in terms of injuries over the last number of months and Evan Comerford is still working his way back to fitness.”
David O’Hanlon, who had been Dublin’s goalkeeper all season up to this point, was named to start the Leinster SFC semi-final against Kildare – but just over half an hour before throw-in it was confirmed Cluxton would be lining out.
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“Dave had a very good league campaign, we were very happy with him, and in the championship opener against Laois as well,” continued Farrell.
“But we felt it was time to try Stephen and give him some exposure in game-time. If anything happened to David you could be in trouble there so now was a good time to do it.”
Chances are he will see a few more minutes in the weeks ahead.
Cluxton’s first game in over two years finished with a 100 per cent return on his kickouts – though the vast majority of those were short uncontested restarts. Which was one of the few things Kildare didn’t contest ferociously with Dublin.
At one stage during the second half emotions boiled over on the sideline as members of the Kildare and Dublin management teams swapped opinions, in particular Ryan and Dubs selector Darren Daly.
“Where was he?” asked Ryan afterwards. “In our designated area, but yet I’m being told to tell one of my officials, to tell them to sit down. How is that? You talk about things that should and shouldn’t work out.
“That has nothing go to do with what happened on the pitch, I don’t want people thinking I’m sitting up here giving out because we got beaten. I’m frustrated we got beaten, absolutely, but it’s meant to be a neutral venue, they say. It’s not.
“There’s the familiarity that Dublin have with here, that no other team gets a chance, and it does benefit them. And I’m probably echoing the thoughts of most other counties. But then the sideline, it’s always our players that get told to put the gumshield in by a fourth official or a fifth official.
“It’s always the fourth official telling our sideline to maybe step back a bit, when a mentor from the Dublin team is actually standing in our [area]. And then you see a sideline ball that’s nowhere near a sideline ball given against you.”
Ryan took issue with the decision to fix the game at Croke Park, given how it transpired the match had to be pushed back half an hour because the Louth-Offaly match finished level and needed extra-time to produce a winner.
“Of course it should it have been played in a neutral venue. Whether one of the games is here and the other one somewhere else, so be it,” added Ryan.
“We were going through our warm-up, and then you’re told it’s not just put back ten or 15 minutes, it’s put back half an hour. And that’s the same for Dublin, absolutely, there’s no difference in terms of the treatment of us and Dublin in that regard.”
On Leeside, Waterford’s Munster senior hurling championship chances were left on the treatment table after they suffered another defeat. Their stuttering start to the campaign leaves Davy Fitzgerald’s side facing a mammoth task now to negotiate a way through to the knockout stages. Cork ran out 0-27 to 0-18 winners.
“It’s easy to assess the performance,” offered Fitzgerald afterwards. “It was absolutely terrible. Lack of energy, lack of drive – it was just very disappointing.
“I’d love to tell you why, I just don’t know. It wasn’t the same team that lined out last week. Maybe ‘twas I got something wrong during the week, I don’t know. That desire to get to the ball in front – we knew that, from puckouts, they’d pull a lot in like Limerick and leave that space but we didn’t attack it.
“Last week, we attacked the space but we didn’t today. If you let Cork get to the ball, they’re going to hurt you, so they are, and they did that today.
“We have no-one to look at only ourselves. We weren’t energetic and we let them dictate everything. It wasn’t good enough. The drive just wasn’t there.”
Henry Shefflin had a short drive home to Ballyhale after watching his Galway side stage a late comeback to snatch a draw against his native Kilkenny at Nowlan Park. It marked his first match as Galway boss at the venue.
“It was a unique experience but I think I was a little bit more comfortable in the scenario because of last year, so I think that was all boxed off and done,” said Shefflin.
The hurling championship continues to gather pace, and on Tuesday those left in the All-Ireland SFC will discover who they will face in the swanky new group stages.
After the weekend’s results, Offaly and Down will compete in the Tailteann Cup. Despite losing to Dublin, Kildare have survived in the Sam Maguire. And don’t think that doesn’t matter.
“Oh, of course it does,” admitted Ryan. “I’ve been asked that question for the last number of weeks, and I’ve batted it away! But for f***’s sake, it would keep you awake at night.
“Of course you think about it, because we’re a proud county and we want to be putting ourselves in a position of competing at that level.”
