Harried Dubs have little to spare

GAELIC GAMES: WELL PERHAPS the price of success is dull days like these. The summertime blues, those Dubs who hibernate between championships, barrelled down to Croke Park late yesterday and didn't get the blow-out they had paid to see.

Dublin squeaked through with a couple of points to spare and the haunting knowledge that if Westmeath had taken their chances there would be another big fish in the qualifiers pond this morning.

"It was one that got away really," said Westmeath manager Tomás Ó Flatharta afterwards. "I suppose we got off to a great start at the beginning of the first half. Let them back in, we lost our concentration. We got a great start in the second but our shooting let us down. That is the story of the day but the other side is the work we put in and the way we played for each other - I am very proud of that."

Westmeath, playing their patented defensive/space optimisation system, got a little leery of the posts in the second half just when they needed to be at their most assured. Their eight wides were a luxury they couldn't afford, and despite denying Dublin a goal - or even a decent smell of a goal - all afternoon they succumbed in the end as if gently chloroformed.

For Westmeath, it was a day when the plan was shown to have worked but the personnel were left wanting. Westmeath usually set out their stall to deny opposing sides more than 11 or 12 points in a game. Dublin got to 13 yesterday and that was enough to carry them through to yet another Leinster final on the back of a showing which was more workmanlike than inspiring.

For The Hill it was a frustrating afternoon, the pattern of which was set early when wing back Michael Ennis fisted a looping ball over the flailing arms of Stephen Cluxton and into the Dublin net for Westmeath's first championship goal against Dublin in eight meetings dating back to 1967.

The score gave succour to a modest Westmeath element among the 67,075 attendance and when Denis Glennon added another score to leave Westmeath ahead by four points after just eight minutes we knew it was going to be a sober day in the cathedral.

Dublin rolled up their sleeves and improvised, though. Ross McConnell had to be moved off his man in the start of a series of switches and substitutions which reflected a management and a team thinking their way around the challenge offered by Westmeath, who played most of the game with wing forward Doran Harte sweeping in front of his full back and with just three forwards lined up straight between Cluxton and the midfield.

The Westmeath strategy of dinking nice balls out into the massive spaces left in the Dublin defence worked handsomely till Dublin's half forwards and midfield tightened up their patrols in the area.

The sides were level at half-time and the game was anybody's. In a series of switches at the break Dublin introduced Paul Casey on to Dessie Dolan and the move had an oddly liberating effect on the Westmeath man. Ciarán Whelan, at that time making a sustained cameo as a blood sub for Shane Ryan, had opened the second half scoring with a fine point but Dolan was suddenly influential.

Dennis Glennon, taking possession on his own out on the Dublin 21-yard line, was hunted and brought down by three Dubs like a hapless wildebeest felled by lions. Dolan punished the pride with a pointed free and a few seconds later kicked a fine point to give his side the lead.

There were 44 minutes gone at that stage. Westmeath would score just once more. The game singularly refused to ignite. The crowd grew somnolent in the clammy Croke Park heat, waiting for rain which they felt would certainly come, or excitement which was an increasingly remote possibility.

Westmeath's tackling and application to their plan continued to be exceptions. And Dublin alleviated the pressure through guerrilla raids. Diarmuid Connolly, on as a substitute, hit his second point of the afternoon to bring the sides level.

Collie Moran put them ahead to brief scenes of delirium and as the half ticked on with Westmeath going 15, then 20 minutes without another score the feeling grew that Dublin would prevail by default.

That feeling hardened when Dessie Dolan missed a very kickable close-in free into The Hill end, a score would have brought Westmeath level again. That prodigal moment was followed by Martin Flanagan hoicking a ball needlessly wide from 50 metres as the game fizzled and spluttered.

Finally that old reliable of stage and screen, Jason Sherlock, decided he had seen enough and popped a score with four minutes left to set the place alight again. Dublin were on their way. Shaken and just a little bit stirred.

"The odds of five to one for a Westmeath win were crazy odds," said Paul Caffrey afterwards. "I think Westmeath are one of the success stories of '08 and they continue to be today. We were at the pins of our collars out there and with eight minutes to go I thought we would end up in a replay. They got the early goal which they craved and it gave them a foothold in the game. It was very hard for us after that."

Dublin haven't lit up this Leinster championship yet but maybe they don't have to. The province is a cleared minefield to be walked through carefully before the real skirmishing begins. Everything now is prologue.