Defeat to Donegal in 2014 a key turning point for Dublin

On the first Sunday afternoon in January 2015, we gloved up and scarfed ourselves to choking point to head for Parnell Park. We stood and steamed the air with our breath during a minute’s silence for the recently departed Andy Kettle before clanking down our seats to watch Dublin take on Maynooth University in the O’Byrne Cup. A nothing game on a cold, nothing day.

If you don't pan every river, though, you won't find all the nuggets. The main thing we came away from Donnycarney with that day was the positioning of John Small at centre-back. Jim Gavin had planted him at six for the day and from six he did not stir. This being Dublin's first game since the All-Ireland semi-final three months previously when Donegal ran in three goals right down the middle of Croke Park, we attached significance to Small's berthing, warranted or not.

“I thought defensively we were very solid, yeah,” said Gavin afterwards, plenty aware of the subtext to our questions about his centre-back. “John Small played very well at six... He put in a big display there today and he certainly commands that position very well.”

Maynooth’s only goal that day came from a mini-gaffe in under a high ball by Mick Fitzsimons that was probably more heavily punished than it deserved to be. But though the personnel was light on names – Dublin ended the day without a single All-Ireland winner on the pitch, which took a bit of doing even then – the drive to ensure that Donegal never happened again had begun.

The O’Byrne Cup game didn’t matter a whit, of course. But in the games that have mattered since, Dublin have played 28 times in league and championship and given up only 14 goals. Before that, they had played 29 league and championship games under Gavin and conceded 26. That Donegal game wasn’t just the midpoint of the Gavin era, it was the turning point.

Since then, only Tyrone have had a better record in keeping goals out. Mickey Harte’s side have given up 13 goals in 25 games in 2015 and 2016, leaving them and Dublin an ocean clear of the other teams left in All-Ireland contention. The one caveat to attach is the fact that Tyrone played this spring in Division Two but the general point stands – by conceding an general average of a goal every two games, both sides have room to spare over the rest of the field.

Kerry, for instance, have given up 25 goals in 25 games. Donegal’s number is 22 in 26, Mayo’s 26 in 24. It will surprise nobody who has become more gradually aware of Tipperary’s style of play that their figures stand at 27 goals conceded in 23 games, the most generous of the remaining teams.

We know how Tyrone have done it – the most miserly, lock-tight forest of bodies in the game, regimented and drilled to the last drop. But though Dublin aren’t in the least bit bashful about getting men back when they have to, it’s not where they go for first principles. They’re still an attacking team, just not to the extent they were before.

That Donegal game is worth revisiting briefly, just to lay out who Dublin were back then. Their method of dealing with a deep-lying blanket was to push up and match each player, regardless of where they were on the pitch. For most of Paul Durcan’s kick-outs that day, 27 of the 30 players on the pitch had a starting position either inside the Donegal half or between the Dublin 65 and the midfield hashmarks.

Stephen Cluxton, Mick Fitzsimons and Colm McFadden were frequently alone in one half of the pitch as the Dublin team attached themselves like electrodes to their Donegal counterparts. It was a full-court press that was faithful to its name. For the third goal, Rory O'Carroll even found himself in the alien position of contesting Durcan's kick-out with Michael Murphy in midfield, leaving Donegal with a four-on-two when Murphy managed to flick the ball on.

Hence the significance of Small’s positioning in that O’Byrne Cup game four months later. Rule one of the Dublin defensive system since then has been: The Centre Must Be Held. Rule two – see rule one.

Cian O’Sullivan is frequently referred to as their sweeper but really his job isn’t all that far removed from the traditional job of a centre half-back. O’Sullivan holds the middle, cuts off the space in front of the exclusion zone and distributes effectively on the ball. The one thing he rarely does is range forward to try and join the attack. Not never, mind. But rarely.

An analysis of the 14 goals Dublin have coughed up since O’Sullivan was first detailed with the job shows just how effective he’s been. Simply put, teams just do not score goals running through the middle of the Dublin defence any more.

Only one of the 14 goals has come about in this fashion – a Mark Collins shot from 14 metres out in last year’s league final after he took a pass from the on-rushing Brian Hurley. If you watch the replay, you can see O’Sullivan chasing back having been bypassed by a quick switch of play, leaving the Dublin defence facing a three-on-three. Incredibly, it’s the only time in almost two years of football they’ve been caught this way for a goal.

The 14 goals can be broken down into broad categories. Four of them have come through goalkeeping error, albeit that includes Stephen Cluxton being pushed across the goalline by Fermanagh’s Seán Quigley last year for a goal that should obviously have been disallowed. Four more have originated in chaos caused by long, high balls raining down on their full-back line. Three have been penalties, to which we’ll return in a jiffy.

Two more have been scrappy goals bundled home from ricochets and one – Cillian O’Connor’s in the replayed All-Ireland semi-final last year – came via the dreadfully old-fashioned route of a diagonal kick-pass inside, hard-won by Andy Moran who skinned his man and drew the full-back before feeding O’Connor for the finish. You can devise all the systems you like but sometimes you just have to acknowledge that the other crowd are training four times a week too.

The penalties though, show that Dublin’s aren’t completely impervious to getting caught ahead of the ball. One, against Cork in the league this year, came from a Philly McMahon jersey pull under a high ball – the corner-back was probably unlucky to get caught more than anything. There certainly wasn’t anything structurally amiss.

But the other two have happened when O’Sullivan has pushed on and been bypassed once the moves have broken down. Against Laois in Nowlan Park this summer, four Dublin defenders pressed up hunting for action deep into Laois territory – Dublin were 13 points ahead at this point so they obviously felt emboldened. But the fun eventually ended when David Byrne tried a handpass to McMahon on the Laois 21-metre metre line, only for it to go awry.

The key consideration here is that when the ball was turned over by Darren Strong, O’Sullivan was caught on the Laois 21-metre line himself. From that point, with Byrne, McMahon and James McCarthy also in the attack, there was a huge prairie of Nowlan Park left empty.

Strong found Conor Meredith and although O’Sullivan managed to get back goalside, it needed a 60-metre run and ultimately a foul to stop the Laois midfielder. And while O’Sullivan caught his breath, Meredith hopped up and played a quick free to Laois corner-back Damien O’Connor who was running for the Dublin goal. Only a foul by Jonny Cooper as he entered the square put an end to it.

The other, far more serious, instance came in the drawn game against mayo last August. With three minutes to go and Dublin four points ahead, O’Sullivan had a completely atypical rush of blood to the head and sallied up field as Dublin were working a short kick-out. Diarmuid Conolly slipped a kick-pass along the ground to him around the Mayo 65 out by the Cusack sideline which he tried to flick up into his hands on the turn and made a mess of.

The problem for Dublin arose when O’Sullivan’s miscontrol meant he turned blind into Diarmuid O’Connor’s hip and took a blow to the head. The ball squirted loose and now Mayo were on the attack with the key to the Dublin defence out of the picture. All it took from there was seven rat-a-tat handpasses directly down the middle of the pitch and Colm Boyle was throwing himself into four Dublin defenders and daring one of them to grab him. McMahon did and Joe McQuillan spread his arms wide.

Dublin didn’t lack for bodies on this occasion but with O’Sullivan on the ground in another postcode, the defenders they had were either turning and chasing back themselves or had retreated to the square to prevent a shot on goal. Nobody had taken it upon himself to do what John Small had done against Maynooth all those months before – play at six and hold the middle. They very nearly paid a huge price for it.

The question this evening is how likely it is that Donegal can draw them into the same sort of similar lapse. It’s hard to see Rory Gallagher’s side winning without goals and the bitter forewarning Dublin got from this fixture two years ago will surely amount to fairly comprehensive forearming. We can assume with some level of confidence that O’Sullivan et al have had the importance of clogging up the centre and not wandering off impressed upon them.

Maybe Donegal have a new plan. Maybe the defections from the Dublin defence will leave them vulnerable tonight and maybe Gallagher’s side can find a way through. If it comes, it feels more likely that the route will be aerial rather than arterial.

As Ruby Walsh put it ever-so succinctly after winning the Galway Hurdle recently, there’s no point getting older if you don’t learn.