Dublin finally find top gear and manage to catch Clare on the line

National Football League, Division Two: Dublin 0-16 Clare 1-12

When Dessie Farrell popped his head into the media centre after Saturday’s Croke Park win, he wondered where all the journalists were.

It turned out that a crammed fixture schedule and, presumably, the expectation of an easy win for the Dubs, meant the attention of the press was focused elsewhere.

Maybe the Dublin players picked up on that mood of indifference because they looked largely uninspired for an hour or so before suddenly finding themselves six points down.

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Then, from nowhere, they turned on the afterburners. Seven points in a row. Ciaran Kilkenny, James McCarthy, Jack McCaffrey and, of course, matchwinner Cormac Costello all coming up trumps. Just like the old days.

“There’s always going to be problems and stuff to sort out, this thing is never going to be linear,” offered Dublin manager Farrell, attempting to sum up a schizophrenic evening. “It can often be one step forward, two steps back, but it’s in the steps back that you might get the most to learn and to take from it.”

Before we get too down on Dublin, they have four wins from four. Farrell has looked at 27 different players in the league – that rises to 49 if you include the O’Byrne Cup – and still has Evan Comerford, Brian Howard, Paul Mannion and Sean Bugler to slip back into his panel.

The other side of it is that they’ve only beaten Clare and Kildare by a point each, and Cork by two. These Division Two games were supposed to be meat and drink to them but it was Clare that came up with the memorable moments on Saturday. Like Gavin Cooney’s late goal in the first-half, an ode to Seamus Darby as he created space between himself and Lee Gannon to pluck Ciaran Russell’s long delivery out of the air, swivel and slam to the net.

That goal left Clare 1-8 to 0-8 ahead at half-time and with Eoin Cleary slotting some sumptuous scores, they got the margin out to six points approaching the hour. Remarkably, just like the Kildare game the previous weekend, they somehow contrived to lose from there.

“We just wipe it now and concentrate on next Sunday,” said Clare manager Colm Collins, noting their crucial home encounter with Cork.

“It won’t be difficult to do because they had a tough game against Kildare too and pretty much put that behind them and concentrated on this game and played very well. We’re close enough overall, there’s a lot of good things going on.”

DUBLIN: D O’Hanlon; D Newcombe, S MacMahon, L Gannon (0-1); J Small, D Byrne, L Gannon; J McCarthy (0-1), B Fenton (0-1); C Kilkenny (0-1), R McGarry, T Lahiff; S Lowry (0-1), D Rock (0-8, five frees, one 45), C O’Callaghan (0-1). Subs: C Costello (0-1) for McGarry, N Scully for Lowry (both h-t), J McCaffrey for Lahiff (45 mins), C Basquel (0-1) for Gannon (51), E Murchan for Murphy (61).

CLARE: S Ryan; M Doherty, C Brennan, R Lanigan; C O’Dea, P Lillis, A Sweeney; C Russell, D Bohannon; J Malone, E Cleary (0-4, one free), D Coughlan (0-1); G Cooney (1-2), E McMahon (0-4, one free), P Collins (0-1). Subs: A Griffin for Collins (h-t), B Rouine for Bohannon (64-66 mins, blood) and for Russell (67), K Sexton for Griffin (70).

Referee: P Faloon (Down).