SHAY BOLAND KNOWS that Dublin will need to step up their game if his minor masterplan is to end in All-Ireland glory rather than another near miss in Croke Park this Sunday.
Over the winter of 2010 and spring of 2011, Boland plotted a course which he hoped would take the capital’s young hurlers back to the top table, focusing on the talent that would be available to him for two seasons rather than one.
It was a vision which very nearly paid dividends in the short-term as well as sowing the seeds for future success. Dublin battled their way to the All-Ireland final last September, the county’s first at minor level since 1983, but ultimately came up a short against Galway.
Now 12 months on, Boland’s men have a second shot at bringing the Irish Press Cup back inside the city limits for the first time in 47 years. A different foe stands in their way this time — Willie Maher and Tipperary — but many of those who will wear sky blue and navy on Sunday remain the same; no fewer than seven of the side which started last year’s final lined out in Dublin’s semi-final win against Clare.
“We were going to be doing this job for two years so we set about putting together a panel where if a player was good enough at 17, he was going to play so that maybe the next year we wouldn’t lose too many,” Boland told TheScore.ie.
I think sometimes at minor you can lose too many in the one year. We kept as many as we could from the 17s but obviously they were there on merit. If you’d a preference, it would be for someone who had another year to go as well.
Whether or not the experience of last year’s Croke Park decider will stand to them on Sunday is a different matter though, he adds.
“It impacts on each individual differently. A lot of them will look back on last year and say ‘could my performance have been better,’ or ‘did I get the best out myself,’ and maybe look at how they can get the best out of themselves this year.
“While it’s an advantage, their being there last year, it won’t count for anything once they hit the pitch. It’s up to them to give a performance or it will pass them by again.
“We were a bit green ourselves last year to be straight up, as a management team, and we learned a lot ourselves. We just hope that what we learned from last year we can put to use this year.”
Dublin go into the final as four-point underdogs after a semi-final performance that won’t exactly have sent shockwaves through the Premier camp. Oisin O’Rorke was their saviour against Clare that day with a goal deep into stoppage time and Boland knows that a similar level of performance will lead to certain defeat against Tipp.
Maybe in the cold light of day, you might say we still won and it’s all about results and it’s all about getting to finals. I suppose you can take whatever you want out of it and from my point of view, we didn’t perform and that level of performance won’t do the next day if we’re to have any sort of chance against Tipperary.We’ve been behind in games before and come back so we knew that the lads had it in them to hang in there. We’d always talk about hanging in there to the very end — whether you’re winning by 10 or losing by 10, just keep doing the same thing.
For their part Tipperary were deserved winners in their own semi-final against Galway, a 2-16 to 1-14 win that faded quickly into the shadows as the county’s seniors combusted in their own semi-final against Kilkenny that afternoon.
“I think they can hurt us everywhere,” Boland says of the Tipp panel. “I think they’re really a seriously good team.
“They’d be using a much bigger pool of talent in Tipperary than we might be using, although the gap is closing a wee bit. All told, they would have a bigger pick than we would have. I just think they’ve smashing hurlers all over the pitch and we just have to match them anywhere and everywhere.”
One thing is for sure, though. Ask Boland about Dublin’s long wait for a minor title with the small ball and the pressures of history and he’ll cut straight to the point. It means nothing.
I’m not a big man for history. History is history and whether you won it two years ago, five years ago, 50 years ago, from our point of view it doesn’t make any difference. It won’t affect our performance.It would be nice to win one and it’d be nice for the county to win one but you don’t always get what you deserve or what you want. All we’re looking to do is try to get a performance and if we get a performance we’ll be happy.
