Dublin GG News

Hi guys,

Tactical analysis of Dublin's win over Westmeath now up
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Emmet

emmetryan wrote:Hi guys,

Tactical analysis of Dublin's win over Westmeath now up
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Emmet

Emmet I note your analysis got published in the Anglo Celt last week, good stuff keep her lit

People interested in stats might like to note the following:

• Meath and Dublin have won the last 8 Leinster championships between them.
  
• The sides have met 6 times in that period with an aggregate score of:
  Meath 7-70 (91)
  Dublin 4-79 (91)
  

I was not overly impressed with the Dublin performance on Saturday and wouldn’t necessarily agree with the mostly positive Sunday paper reviews.

A few positives. Ran up a good score. Debutants all played well. Paddy Andrews did well. Ger Brennan looking really sharp. Number of guys made an impact from the bench. When we did things at pace we looked unstoppable.

Some negatives. Guys carrying the ball into contact needlessly and losing it. Tempo of game was up and down - but in fairness it was the first outing. Some poor shot selection and going for the glory score from players who should know better. Only converted one goal chance. Cluxton’s radar not as effective as usual. Midfield not impressive. So lots to work on.

On further observation - on the refereeing. As in the League it sometimes seems a Dublin player has to be nearly killed to get a free – in contrast to some given to Westmeath – one in particular where no foul was committed. In the last 10 minutes attacking Dublin players were pulled down on three separate occasions (black card offences) and no yellow was shown. Ger Brennan fouls a guy with 2 minutes to go and gets yellow ….. because he is Ger Brennan. Would not to like to see the ref handle a game with real championship intensity.

JCluxton wrote: On further observation - on the refereeing. As in the League it sometimes seems a Dublin player has to be nearly killed to get a free

All part of the GAA's anti-Dublin conspiracy. God knows what will be next - perhaps forcing the Dubs to play a match away from home?

All part of the GAA's anti-Dublin conspiracy. God knows what will be next - perhaps forcing the Dubs to play a match away from home?

don't really matter any more the dubs are in the zone to collect in sept,as for tyrone the fall has being as i predicted and i'm loving it

no they won't let Dubs cash cow away from home. sure its the dubs who pay for the likes of your centre of excellence (or centre of mediocrity in yer case! LOL)

Wed love to travel to tyrone and support the UK economy. might even have a few pints of bitter. id say you drink lots of it thomas clarke LOL

nothing like a good dubs team to bring out the jealousy and narrow minds. coybib!

coybib wrote:no they won't let Dubs cash cow away from home. sure its the dubs who pay for the likes of your centre of excellence....Wed love to travel to tyrone and support the UK economy...

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Thank you to all the generous Dubs who made this possible. It's worth noting, that the £1.4m mentioned in the article was donated by only 272 supporters. The 'Cead Mile Pixels' project is also raising a considerable amount of money from less affluent Tyrone fans.

the project is costing +€6m. the GAA nat infrastructure fund (ie Dub fans) will contribute over €2m. don't be so ungrateful lol. its not even nat infrastructure!

coybib wrote:the project is costing +€6m. the GAA nat infrastructure fund (ie Dub fans) will contribute over €2m. don't be so ungrateful lol. its not even nat infrastructure!

It was €1.9m received, made up from both regional and local infrastructure grants. This €1.9m came as a result of monies generated from the leasing of Croke Park between 2007-2010 (I can't recall many big Dublin matches in Croke Park in that time, although the massacres by Tyrone & Kerry stand out). A similar amount was secured from the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure.

So, roughly a 3rd from the GAA (note, not the Dubs), a 3rd from the NI Executive, and a 3rd from Tyrone fans.

As an interesting comparison, £5,000 was donated by each of 272 Tyrone supporters, which is slightly more than the number of Dublin fans who could be bothered to make the trip for their recent league game in Ballybofey. However, if you'd prefer to continue to talk about handouts, perhaps we should look at Dublin's use of Croke Park, or their training sessions at DCU.

dubs generate about half GAA income and look we don't mind paying for your facilities. Ye badly need them. good to help the weaker counties. think of it as foreign aid lol to go with the money from UK. good massacres of tyrone by Dubs in that time too lol - not the league final one. but ye did win the pointless one this year fair play but then ye were goin all out lol. cdnt win when it matters as has been the case for many years now lol.

its true not many went to donegal but it was a dead rubber after all with nothing at stake and the hurlers played in tipp the night before. i went to that. your lucky that tyrone don't have that dual problem.

Look away at using croker and dcu. GAA beg us to use the place and wont let us go anywhere else lol. go and have a few more pints of bitter thomas clarke lol.

coybib wrote:dubs generate about half GAA income and look we don't mind paying for your facilities. Ye badly need them. good to help the weaker counties. think of it as foreign aid lol to go with the money from UK. good massacres of tyrone by Dubs in that time too lol - not the league final one. but ye did win the pointless one this year fair play but then ye were goin all out lol. cdnt win when it matters as has been the case for many years now lol.

its true not many went to donegal but it was a dead rubber after all with nothing at stake and the hurlers played in tipp the night before. i went to that. your lucky that tyrone don't have that dual problem.

Look away at using croker and dcu. GAA beg us to use the place and wont let us go anywhere else lol. go and have a few more pints of bitter thomas clarke lol.

The very deliberate use of poor grammar is a dead giveaway here. I hope the sheer stupidity in what you're saying is also feigned.

An upset in Parnell Park last night as Carlow U-21's lowered the Dublin colours in Leinster hurling. Apparently a Carlow forward broke through late on and eschewing the chance to level, struck for and landed a green flag. It takes some level of self-belief to execute this in the heat of battle and fair play to him.

As a forum we can only hope that the scorer of this goal was HurlingGuru (from whom we haven't heard from in a while).... Doubtless he's flat out training but his take on last nights events should be a mix of exuberance and rationale....

any news of a starting 15 for sunday,heard rushie will be a forward

any news of a starting 15 for sunday,heard rushie will be a forward

No news for you except to point out that the Cats will probably be wearing black armbands in memory of the original "man of iron", the late
Pa Dillon who has passed away RIP. Pa was, how can you put it, Hmmmm I think "uncompromising" fits nicely.

He's doubtless taking scelps off someones shins in the big park up above. Light of Heaven to you Pa.....

Hi guys,

Tactical preview of Dublin vs Kildare up here [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Emmet

Seemingly Sam Maguire complete with a Garland of Navy and Blue ribbons was carefully cotton balled and put on john mcginleys bus this evening for safe return to Parnell square.
Its been an enjoyable 40 odd weeks but like all sabbaticals its only more painful to overpro-long the enivitable return to status quo.

You have to wonder what McGeeney was thinking.  After 5-6 years, has he decided that the lads who have served him so well are not longer good enough, and that firing in 7-8 young lads is a better option?  They were fast and eager, but looked desperately lost when things turned against them.  His future must really be in question now. (There was also a skill gulf between then 2 teams.)

Dublin looked good, and the Meath who beat Wicklow & Wexford don't look remotely good enough to test them in the final.  Dublin's biggest problem remains the strong likelihood of their new players not being properly challenged until it's do or die.

Hi guys,

Tactical analysis of how Dublin and Kildare ended up being a rout here
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Thanks,
Emmet

emmetryan wrote:Hi guys,

Tactical analysis of how Dublin and Kildare ended up being a rout here
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks,
Emmet

I enjoy your blogs Emmet but, with due respect, devoting so much of your article to the myth of goalkeepers playing as sweepers seems very odd.  You say that:

"Kieran McGeeney’s wrinkle was to answer the question of whether or not to use a sweeper by deploying Connolly into the back lines.....Even though the goalkeeper made some good saves when faced with several massive overlaps (more on that to come) he made no impact in reducing Dublin’s space to operate in attack, as the sheer number of overlaps Jim Gavin’s side created attests."

This simply was not the case.  Connolly was in goals, not in his full/half back line.  On a couple of occasions he carried the ball out, but to suggest that he was supposed to reduce the space in which Dublin's attack operated is, in my opinion, fanciful.  The same goes for Cluxton, who plays behind his full backline, not in front of them.

The biggest tactical decision that McGeeney made was in the selection of his side, and the over-promotion of his U21 team.  They were fast enough for Dublin, but not strong enough, skilful enough or positionally sound enough.

Jim mcg at HQ hopefully will develop a plan to restrict dublin goal chances to less than 20.

Kildare's second heavy defeat against a top 6 side. In 09-11 they were threatening to break into top 4. Now they are well short of top six. A draw against Armagh, Tyrone, Derry might end their season in early July.
After 5 years pace and physique would beone area that you would have thought Geezer would have bridged

OMAR wrote:

Jim mcg at HQ hopefully will develop a plan to restrict dublin goal chances to less than 20.

Kildare's second heavy defeat against a top 6 side. In 09-11 they were threatening to break into top 4. Now they are well short of top six. A draw against Armagh, Tyrone, Derry might end their season in early July.
After 5 years pace and physique would beone area that you would have thought Geezer would have bridged

To be fair, they were a bigger and better side in that 09-11 period.  I think McGeeney realised last year that, with the retirement of Earley and the decline of Doyle, what was left were not good enough to win an AI.  He tried to change things this year with his U21s, but it is too early for them to compete with a team like Dublin.  

Unless there is a big improvement and a decent run in the qualifiers, I'd be looking to a new voice on the sideline, and someone with a 3 year plan for building a new team.  Kieran has had his chance, and his race looks to have been lost.

The Kildare goalkeeper is an eejit - he's going to cost them some day. Can he not stand in the goals like other goalkeepers. Not the first game he's coming running out with the ball and lost it.

The u21 keeper must have been injured. The sooner he's back, the better Kildare will be.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

OMAR wrote:

Jim mcg at HQ hopefully will develop a plan to restrict dublin goal chances to less than 20.

Kildare's second heavy defeat against a top 6 side. In 09-11 they were threatening to break into top 4. Now they are well short of top six. A draw against Armagh, Tyrone, Derry might end their season in early July.
After 5 years pace and physique would beone area that you would have thought Geezer would have bridged

To be fair, they were a bigger and better side in that 09-11 period.  I think McGeeney realised last year that, with the retirement of Earley and the decline of Doyle, what was left were not good enough to win an AI.  He tried to change things this year with his U21s, but it is too early for them to compete with a team like Dublin.  

Unless there is a big improvement and a decent run in the qualifiers, I'd be looking to a new voice on the sideline, and someone with a 3 year plan for building a new team.  Kieran has had his chance, and his race looks to have been lost.

Appreciate the rebuild point, but what is hard to rationalise is the scale of the the two defeats. Regardless of the age of the squad one would have thought that if the McGeeney blueprint is to work he needs to instill the resilience he had as a playeras a trait which clearly is not happening.