One from 15 leaves five-in-a-row for Dublin

GAELIC GAMES: TOM HUMPHRIES on how Pat Gilroy's men were able to take Ger Brennan's red card in their stride as they notched up Leinster title number 49

GAMES CARRY their own context and merit their own response. Dublin’s 49th Leinster football title and their fifth in a row was claimed in Croke Park yesterday on a score of 2-15 to 0-18 and a certain familiarity with the Delaney Cup suggested that the celebrations be restrained.

However, Dublin’s sense of liberation at having lost a man yet still finding enough resolve to overcome a more than decent Kildare side ruled the day and in the end the Croke Park stewards were scrambling for the infamous Plan B.

The Hill emptied itself in a spew of blue across the Croke Park pitch (which was being torn up within the hour anyway in preparation for U2) and Dublin celebrated like a county who had seen the end of famine.

Their joy was forgivable. This was game form from which they will have learned much about themselves. Who knew?

Nothing in the early paragraphs suggested an epic of the genre or a game which would sit comfortably as the best of the season so for. Facile wins for both sides at the semi-final stage had only served to underline the paucity of quality within the province and if this had turned out to be an afternoon of uninspired skirmishing nobody would have been too surprised.

It opened with a few fireworks but no hint of great spectacle. Dublin set out their stall in daring fashion, scoring 1-3 in the opening four minutes while setting themselves up for a festival of scoring. Then as their manager Pat Gilroy would ruefully note afterwards, they stopped moving the ball at speed.

Infidelity to their own game plan was risky but the dismissal of centre back Ger Brennan after 17 minutes was flirtation with pure disaster. Brennan got a straight red card for an injudicious thump on Ken Donnelly right in front of the linesman and in front of the Hogan Stand. The decision was apparently so clean-cut and incontrovertible that Croke Park took the unprecedented decision to reshow it on the big screens at either end of the stadium. It didn’t look any smarter when magnified 50-fold.

Perhaps enjoying the gift of an extra man caused some turmoil in Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh heart. For the remainder of the first half he used his advantage with a swashbuckling nonchalance, supplementing his side’s attack and enjoying the proceeds as pass after pass found the spare man.

By half-time all the Kildare forwards had scored from play. Kildare suffocated Dublin at midfield, forcing them into errors and only a goal conjured by Jason Sherlock kept the sides shoulder to shoulder going into the break.

In the second half, though, McGeeney’s more conservative side won the argument and Mikey Conway was deployed as a sweeper behind the half-back line. The fizz went out of Kildare’s play.

Dublin scored the first four points of the half unanswered and Kildare never got their noses back in front.

How chagrined they must feel to have scored 18 points from play in a Leinster final only to still end up with losers’ medals.

Almost all of Kildare’s plans came to fruition and as such it was an afternoon which showcased McGeeney’s genuine potential to be a top-level manager.

Kildare hustled Dublin out of their quick transfer game for a while, limiting their options and forcing them to hold until they could be mugged. They threatened to tear apart Dublin’s patch-and- mend full-back line and they exerted a suffocating hold on the midfield sector for much of the first half.

Apart from the pace and the spectacle it was that battle of wits on the sideline which made the game so enjoyable and full of texture.

Dublin responded to the midfield crisis and the loss of Brennan by throwing in three veterans, Ciarán Whelan, Shane Ryan and Bryan Cullen.

They let Alan Brogan drift back to do some unselfish donkey work in his own half and kept switching their inside forward line until they once again found an outlet for quick ball.

If the Hill was pleased with the character and resilience shown by its favourites it will have been reassured too by the hand played by Gilroy on the sideline. Dublin’s substitutions and running alterations to the gameplan worked. They thought their way out of trouble as much as they fought their way out of trouble.

“It is a means to an end,” said Gilroy later of his first title on as a manager.

“It was a good, hard-hitting game. We conceded too many scores but both teams would have to be happy with what they did out there. It’s a step along the road, though. Dublin need to be in an All-Ireland final this year. That is progress for us.”

Gilroy’s words were tacit acknowledgement that however special yesterday’s game was it merely allowed Dublin to arrive at a place they have been before. This was their sixth Leinster title of the decade and not once has that honour been supplemented by an All-Ireland final appearance.

Being the big shots in the neighbourhood was a pleasing sensation for a while but the neighbourhood ain’t what it used to be, even if the slightly disappointing attendance of 74,572 (after confident prediction of a sellout) was being put down afterwards to organisational deficiencies rather than any lack of interest among the faithful of the capital.

Dublin advance to a quarter final in three weeks’ time.

Kildare have a detour to the qualifiers to endure.