Trying to make sense of the extra man

KIERAN McGEENEY, the Kildare manager, a man shrouded in mythical status due to his inspirational leadership during Armagh football’s greatest days, refused to attend the official post-match press conference in Croke Park yesterday.

McGeeney recently met Government officials as part of the Gaelic Player’s Association delegation along with chief executive Dessie Farrell and Cork hurling goalkeeper Donal Óg Cusack. The print media were not supposed to be hindered by the decision not to do interviews with television and radio outlets this past weekend as part of the GPA struggle to gain official recognition from the GAA.

Anyway, we found McGeeney a few minutes later outside the dressingroom. After discussing the match we sought an insight into his refusal to speak to television despite the availability of Dublin manager Pat Gilroy and the Munster hurling final managers.

“The players made the decision. I would rather a question about football rather than television.”

There were plenty of football questions. Dublin centre back Ger Brennan was sent off on 18 minutes for striking yesterday. In the reshuffle Bryan Cullen came in for Diarmuid Connolly to remind everyone of his value. It also meant Mikey Conway was used as Kildare’s extra man. Until Dublin began marking him. Then the extra man became the extra man. Until Dublin marked him too (repeat process continually).

Afterwards, Kildare players and management stated this as their undoing. By over-using the numerical advantage out the field any constant supply to the inside forwards suffered, ensuring a rigorous inspection of an untested Dublin fullback line never materialised. “You can do the psychology (of it) but fellas know they have to work harder,” said McGeeney. “I think our boys let them slow the game down in the second half and they got us on the counter because we had the extra man. We were lethargic in our tackling because we had the extra man. We were taking the extra pass instead of moving it quicker.

“Fellas on the inside line were having the better of their defenders. That’s probably the lesson because we had the extra man we felt we had to use him when we were more effective getting the ball in quicker.”

McGeeney tried to provide more clarity as to the advantage, wait, make that disadvantage, Brennan provided Kildare with an impetuous act of indiscipline. “Most people say you dictate your own extra man but you don’t. The other team dictates your own extra man. Unfortunately, if you say you want to be free and somebody goes and marks you, what do you do?

“Obviously you tell the extra man different things to do but that changes the way Dublin were doing it. I don’t think it is how you deploy your extra man; basically it comes down to your mindset when you go down an extra man. You tend to work that wee bit harder. When you have that extra man you tend to feel you don’t have to work as hard. I think, basically, it is as simple as that. Now, I could be wrong on that but it’s just my opinion on it.

“We took an extra pass when we didn’t need to. There were fellas inside making the runs. I remember three occasions we had the corner forward free but we didn’t put the ball into him. We went down the channel because there was an extra man there. It’s not because fellas don’t work hard enough. They see an extra man beside them and give it instead of looking over the other side.”

Kildare captain John Doyle echoed this opinion before admitting: “I don’t think it made much of a difference today. It was an open game of football.”

The 14-man conspiracy theory is nothing new so maybe this was pre-planned by Dublin. Maybe Brennan drew the short straw and was told to get sent off, only on a four week charge, mind, to ensure Dublin retained their fifth consecutive Leinster title.

Or maybe it was something else.