Champions crank up well-oiled machine

Dublin 2-22 Louth 0-12:ALL RELEVANT questions concerning yesterday's Leinster football quarter-final were answered quickly.

Would Dublin be rusty after a two-month break?

Would they labour, still sated by their big feed last September?

Would the Brogans be less acquisitive after so little football this year?

Would Louth, tuned in by a championship victory last month, produce one of those big displays they occasionally conjure apparently out of nowhere?

No.

None of those things would happen.

It took the champions less than two minutes to equalise Darren Clarke’s pointed free, kicked after 42 seconds, less than a minute longer to hit the front and, conservatively, less than quarter of an hour to convince all present – including their unhappy opponents – that there was only going to be one outcome.

Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick described Dublin as “a machine” and whereas he was proud of his team’s more competitive second half, by that stage the machine was idling.

Fully cranked up, it overran the opposition, even allowing for the fact that the challengers weren’t exactly raging against their subjugation. One statistic illustrates the chasm: Dublin’s starting forwards helped themselves to 2-16 from play; Louth’s had just one point to show over the 70 minutes and it was Clarke’s acumen from the dead ball that contributed two-thirds of their total.

Ominously, the machine also hit a high gear quite early in proceedings, giving notice that Louth’s match practice wasn’t going to be a significant advantage. Stephen Cluxton set the team on its way, coming up from goal to kick a 45 to equalise and, two minutes later, saving superbly to deny Adrian Reid at the expense of a 45.

As an encore, he pulled down Clarke’s subsequent kick as it looked like dropping over the bar. But it was the other goalkeeper, Neil Gallagher, who had the more hectic afternoon and even so, he was unlucky that a couple of good saves ended up in scores despite his best efforts.

By the end of the first quarter Dublin led 0-6 to 0-1 and could have had a goal but Kevin McManamon – who sometimes appears condemned by fate after last year’s goal of a lifetime never to raise another green flag – saw the first of three goal chances frustrated by Gallagher’s save. A smart scramble by the corner backs, Pádraig Rath and Gerard Hoey, kept out Bernard Brogan’s and Diarmuid Connolly’s attempts from the rebound.

The five minutes before half-time was however when the roof fell in on Louth. Trailing by a respectable 0-3 to 0-8, they first watched as Paul Flynn dispossessed Mark Brennan and boomed a formidable point from around 45 metres out on the wing.

Then a Louth attack led by the redoubtable Paddy Keenan, who got on an impressive amount of ball for someone whose team was being dominated in terms of possession, was repelled by Michael Fitzsimons’s terrific block. The ball was swept up the field to Alan Brogan, who picked out his brother Bernard and seconds later the ball was in the net.

The younger Brogan had a very impressive comeback match after missing the entire league. Some of his touches weren’t entirely sure but his appetite for action and quite an amount of his execution were impeccable.

In successive minutes captain Bryan Cullen and McManamon added points. Just before the break Flynn steamed through the centre, drew the cover and passed to Connolly. His shot was saved, as was Bernard Brogan’s initial follow-up, but he made no mistake with the second.

Of the half-time lead of 2-11 to 0-3, 2-3 had come in those fateful minutes and Louth took them back to the dressing room like a death sentence.

Keenan and Ronan Carroll held up the Louth challenge in conventional centrefield work and got forward tirelessly but Eamon Fennell and the restored Denis Bastick – back for his first start of the year in place of the selected Michael Dara Macauley, who picked up an injury on Saturday – showed the familiar virtues of work rate, physical pressure and support play that kept Dublin going forward.

For the second half, Craig Dias made his senior championship debut for Dublin and was impressively energetic as a replacement for Cullen who had sustained a cheek injury, kicking two points on his introduction.

Louth made a competition of the second half on the score-board, losing by just two points, even though it was 45 minutes before Carroll shot their first point from play, but Dublin could have had a hatful of goals.

McManamon was wide of the right post in the 49th minute and seven minutes later forced a save from Gallagher and managed to latch onto the rebound and fist a point. Connolly hit the post on the hour and Bastick’s 67th-minute rampage through the middle could have cost more than a point.

Ray Finnegan, at wing back one of Louth’s best players, and JP Rooney, who made an impact as a replacement, had late scores from play but the machine was already heading in the direction of the winners of the Wexford-Longford replay.

DUBLIN: 1 S Cluxton (0-2, 45s); 4 M Fitzsimons, 3 R O’Carroll, 2 P McMahon; 5 J McCarthy, 6 G Brennan, 7 K Nolan; 8 E Fennell, 20 D Bastick (0-1); 10 P Flynn (0-2), 14 K McManamon (0-3), 12 B Cullen (0-2); 11 Alan Brogan (0-2), 13 D Connolly (0-3), 15 B Brogan (2-5, one point free). Subs: 23 C Dias (0-2) for Cullen (half-time), 24 E O’Gara for Flynn (50 mins), 21 R McConnell for Fennell (58 mins), 18 J Cooper for McMahon (58 mins), 19 P Casey for Brennan (65 mins). Yellow card: Fitzsimons (62 mins).

LOUTH: 1 N Gallagher; 2 P Rath, 6 J Carr, 3 D Finnegan; 5 R Finnegan (0-1), 4 G Hoey, 7 D Byrne; 8 P Keenan, 9 R Carroll (0-1); 10 D Crilly, 11 R Brennan, 12 A Reid (0-1); 13 D Maguire, 14 J McEneaney, 15 D Clarke (0-8, seven frees, one line ball). Subs: 18 R Greene for D Finnegan, 25 A McDonnell for McEneaney (both half-time), 26 L Shevlin for Carr (53 mins), 23 JP Rooney (0-1) for Brennan (53 mins), 22 D Reid for A Reid (71 mins). Yellow cards: Reid (6 mins), D Finnegan (29 mins).

Referee: E Kinsella (Laois).