THEY SAY HISTORY is written by the victors but Jim Gavin does not expect Sunday’s ‘clash of cultures’ to be a defining moment for Gaelic football.
Free-scoring Dublin and defensive kingpins Donegal meet in the second of this year’s All-Ireland semi-finals to answer the perennial question: what happens when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force?
The bookmakers and pundits have already had their say. No object, man-made or otherwise, can deter the Dubs who are as short as 1/8 to make it to a third final in four seasons and hot favourites to retain Sam Maguire.
On paper, it is easy to see why. Gavin’s side have won each of their Championship matches this summer by double-digit scores, scoring a remarkable 115 points across four games and conceding just 55.
They have been as clinical going forward as they have been robust in defence. Of the four counties still standing, only one has conceded fewer points per game: Donegal (49).
Set against the backdrop of the counties’ infamous 2011 meeting at the same stage, Sunday’s clash has been invested with a similar epoch-defining significance.
The memory of that day still lingers and has come up in practically every conversation over the last fortnight. It was very nearly the defining tactical masterstroke of Jim McGuinness’s career.
The rookie manager stunned everyone by pulling 14 men behind the ball and conceding possession to Dublin on every kick-out. The flummoxed Dubs managed just two points from play but, despite being reduced to 14 men in the second half, they managed to eke out an 0-8 to 0-6 win.
McGuinness now admits that the game came too soon for his young side, an opinion borne out by the more mature and nuanced approach they took the following season en route to an All-Ireland title of their own.
And while Gavin knows that Dublin could come up against a similar blanket of green and gold bodies again on Sunday, he is aware too that Donegal are no one-trick pony.
“When we played them in Ballybofey [a league match in 2013], they pushed up on us,” he recalled yesterday.
“That was a really competitive and very enjoyable game to be involved in, so they can certainly change their strategies as well.
“We don’t really look that far in the past. Both teams have changed and evolved since 2011. That’s a long time ago.
“So the reference point for me would be Donegal’s most recent success which is an Ulster title and a very compact game against Armagh where they looked to be in control for most of it, and they did what they had to do to win the game. That’s what quarter-finals are about.”
Although Dublin have convincingly swept all before them, there is an argument that they haven’t faced anything close to a true examination of their credentials yet this summer.
Recent history is not on their side either; for the last five seasons, the defending champions have failed to make it back to the final the following year.
So there are plenty of interested bystanders, eager to see how the Dubs react to the unique tactical challenge which Donegal will certainly pose.
“I can’t dictate and control how another team sets themselves up,” Gavin explained.
“I acknowledge that Donegal have a very strong defensive system and are very difficult to break down.
In attack, they’re very competent. They manage the ball very well, great patterns of movement, and get players into the scoring positions.
“And they have a very high shot-scoring ratio from taking the right options at the right time.
“They can mix it up with some long balls into the square. They have some big players there.
“How they set themselves up… we can’t dictate that.
“Most of our work over the past two weeks has been on how we’re going to play our game.”
That gameplan will inevitably be shaped by Donegal’s own tactics, Gavin accepts, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be preordained before throw-in. He’s confident that his players can adapt and react on the fly as soon as a discernible pattern emerges.
He raises the quarter-final against Monaghan where after a stifling opening quarter, the Dublin half-back line showed a bit more initiative and adventure. Within a couple of minutes, Diarmuid Connolly and Bernard Brogan had scored the goals that changed the game.
“We’ll have different strategies for different parts of the game.
We will try to play our traditional, open style of football and play the way Dublin see the game to be played.
Gavin added: “We have a standard sort of template that we use but that is modified depending on the opposition that we play.
“The great thing about these Dublin players is they have a high level of game intelligence. [They are] quite disciplined and can move in and out of different strategies that we want them to play, and that’s been an impressive part of working with them.
“The players read it themselves. They are a very intelligent group of players and they see patterns of defensive play develop against them. They will talk about it on the field of play and do what is required to break a team down
“It was a very robust Monaghan defence that they encountered the last day and it will be even more robust on Sunday.”
If Dublin can stick to their free-flowing style and dismantle Donegal in the process, it is bound to be hailed as a triumph of the beautiful game over dour anti-football.
Imitators will surely spawn in the image of the victor but does that make this game one on which the future of Gaelic football hinges? Not at all, Gavin insists.
“Each county has their own culture.
That’s the great thing about Gaelic football and Gaelic games in general. There is no right or wrong way, in my opinion, to set a team up.
“It’s the manager’s decision to decide what strategy and tactics he employs on any given day, and he’s doing his very best for his community and his county.
“We’ve inherited from people who have gone before us a particular style of football that’s played at club level and people expect us to play that at county level.
“Sometimes we get successful, sometimes we don’t. There are no guarantees, but that’s just the way we play.”
