In the end, the year came together perfectly for Jim Gavin and Dublin. But only on this, the last day. A comfortable league title and another facile Leinster title and a comprehensive win against a daring Fermanagh team in the quarter final: Dublin made it through to the last four without having to show their true colours. As they held off Kerry in a hard and soaked All-Ireland final, Gavin must have privately thanks the gods for the wobble that forced them into a replay against Mayo. Just as Kerry found in 2014, beating the Connacht men on the second day of asking was the making of Dublin's All-Ireland season.
“Be careful what you wish for, but in hindsight, yeah, it certainly helped us,” Gavin said.
“It probably helped Kerry as well last year. Certainly when you’re looking at the championship structure, for a team like Kerry to be waiting four weeks for an All-Ireland final, it’s not good enough these days.”
Reimagining Cian O'Sullivan as a sweeper was Gavin's key response to last summer's traumatic defeat to Donegal. Right until throw in, there was speculation over O'Sullivan's fitness but in the end, the Kilmacud man lasted an hour and his influence was central to Kerry's failure to get their gilded full-forward line firing. No score for Colm Cooper; no score for the starting half-forward line and the sight of James O'Donoghue retired early. No score for Kieran Donaghy after a full-on wrestling match with Rory O'Carroll on the edge of the Dublin goal: even with the injury to Johnny Cooper, it was a happy outing for the Dublin defence. O'Sullivan's presence was a stabilising factor.
“He trained all week,” Gavin confirmed.
“We didn’t fitness test him - he trained with the squad. I was confident having spoken with him a couple of days after the replay. He’s a very determined man. I left it down to him if I’m honest. We place a lot of faith and trust in the players. They let me know if they’re good to go or not. That’s been the hallmark of them, their honesty with me. He was honest to say he’s good to go and we trusted him.”
Gavin also resisted the temptation to start Michael Dara Macauley, whose storming turn in the last twenty minutes of that Mayo replay turned the day in Dublin's favour. His faith in Raheny's Brian Fenton was rewarded. The number eight opened the scoring with a point after the first twenty five seconds, was prominent in a gruelling midfield afternoon and was unlucky not to score the game's first goal in the 47th minute. It was a fine way to top off a memorable year.
“In Dublin GAA circles we’ve known about him for a long time,” said Gavin.
“”He got injured a few years back and has recovered well. He’s been playing great football with UCD the last couple of years, and underage football as well. He really came of age up in Clones against Monaghan during the National League. He has built on his performances, each game.
“I’m delighted for that midfield partnership, whoever he was with, I thought they did well. That was one of the key areas, that middle third. I thought he had a good game.”
For Michael Dara Macauley, the satisfaction of the day was tempered by what was a stop-start season for himself. He came in for the last half hour of this match, a bright end to a testing season.
“It was my most frustrating year on a football field. You have to take the highs with the lows. With injuries, I seemed to be chasing my tail a little bit but I felt I kind of got there towards the end. I felt it was a little too late...I would have liked to have a bigger part to play. But that is the way it goes.”
In his captain's speech, Stephen Cluxton said that Dublin had begun planning for this season two weeks after losing the semi-final to Donegal. So this title was over a year in planning.
“We really felt that last year,” Macauley says.
“We felt we were primed to win it and were beaten by the better team on the day in Donegal. And we had a few challenges thrown at this year in the last three games. We had no doubts what we were facing today. We knew with ten minutes to go it is always going to be in the mix and I think our fitness shows on lads. Our lads had the hard work done and it paid off. I’m proud of the lads. It was an awful day for football and whoever was tuned in for the breaks was going to have a big say in winning it. I think we got our nose ahead there and we are just happy with the win. We are not auld lads yet and hopefully we can add to the silverware.”
