LAST SATURDAY NIGHT in Croke Park, Con O’Callaghan challenged the theory that nostalgia is a file used to knock the rough edges off the good old days.
In fact, he flipped it on its head by showing that instead it can be used to escape the reality of the hard new times which Dublin football now inhabits.
An eyesore of a game played out in a ghostly atmosphere, for those who watched on shivering from the sparsely attended Hill, the only tangible link – and therefore accompanying warmth – with the glory days came packaged inside the number 14 shirt.
Yes, there were others, but they were not instantly recognisable. Ciarán Kilkenny and Brian Howard sported moustaches, while Niall Scully’s black shadow hinted at growth to come on that front.
It was curious – and given what unfolded out on the pitch any kind of curiosity was welcome – and it left us wondering could this outbreak of razor shyness be less about fashion and more about survival.
After Ger Brennan’s threatened purge of veterans, was this all part of a cunning new plan so that the old-timers could skip past security at Parnell Park, furnished with new identities.
Dublin manager Ger Brennan. Nick Elliott / INPHO
Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
As for King Con, he looked and, more importantly, played the same, kicking eight points to finally see off the dogged but limited resistance of a Monaghan side, whose acceptance of demotion to a lower tier was reflected by playing like a team already there.
Advertisement
Truth is, though, they should still have won and would have but for O’Callaghan.
Dublin’s dysfunction was pervasive, they struggled on their kick-outs, their defence was so porous and distracted they coughed up SEVEN goal chances but nothing jarred like their impotence in front of the posts.
In their pomp as the game’s greatest, they changed how we looked and spoke about football, they introduced the notion of a scoring zone and turned it into a killing one. If they did not introduce the metric of execution levels, they claimed its ownership, posting figures north of 80% for conversion rates that became the standard for those who hopelessly sought to match them.
In the first half on Saturday evening, they had 19 kicks at the posts and converted seven, which comes in at 36%.
These days that is an execution rate which only rears its head in a married versus singles beery St Stephen’s Day kick around at a pitch near you.
This was not just Dublin as we knew them, this was not football as we have grown to know it.
Four minutes before half-time, O’Callaghan turned down tapping over a routine free from the edge of the square to kick it back outside the arc in an attempt to double the value, but Ross McGarry’s effort barely passed the point where the original kick was taken from.
The only way it would have worked was for O’Callaghan to catch his own set-up kick and, as good as he is, he has limits.
In many ways, he was the original boy wonder before the other wonder arrived, but the Messi/Ronaldo conversation so richly anticipated in Gaelic football has never really taken off.
Con O'Callaghan in action for Dublin against Donegal's Ciaran Moore in January. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
That is more a reflection on Dublin’s decline than his ability, but the fear now is that we are fast running out of time for them to engage.
In less than two months, O’Callaghan will celebrate his 30th birthday and by early summer he will have joined the century club – he has already racked up 93 appearances, with, in a timely coincidence that should rhyme this weekend, his first coming off the bench in a 2016 league clash with Kerry in Croke Park.
Those are only numbers, but what really separates O’Callaghan and David Clifford is the potent sense that Dublin and Kerry are on diverging roads travelling at very different speeds, which might sound a little odd given that less than three years have passed since Dublin extended their unbeaten All-Ireland final record against the Kingdom to a fifth game.
Indeed, had O’Callaghan been fit for the 2022 All-Ireland semi-final, there is a compelling case to be made that Clifford might have had to wait until last summer to finally pocket that first Celtic Cross.
Outside of three All-Ireland finals, the pair have only shared the same pitch on two other occasions with O’Callaghan – he nailed a hat-trick of goals the last time they met in the 2024 league clash – having never lost.
Con O'Callaghan in action for Dublin against Kerry's Jason Foley in 2024. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
What unites them is a perception that both counties are unhealthily dependent on their leading men, but that is a truth which weighs heavier on Dublin than Kerry.
Nailing down Clifford gets a team halfway to beating Kerry, but then there is the creativity of his older brother Paudie, the scoring threat of Seanie O’Shea, the surging power of Joe O’Connor and the most dynamic half-back line in the game, all of which have to be dealt with.
It is not that O’Callaghan is alone, but the supporting cast is bare to the bone. Kilkenny, no matter what disguise he wears, is an all-time great – and at the top of the list of best footballers to have never been honoured as player of the year – while Sean Bugler is an incisive and potent presence in attack.
Dublin's Ciarán Kilkenny in action against Monaghan's Ryan McAnespie. Nick Elliott / INPHO
Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
But, after that, where do Dublin go? Last summer, there was not even a sense of mild surprise when Dublin exited at the last eight stage to Tyrone with a whimper, as a half-fit O’Callaghan could only be deployed from the bench.
Related Reads
Leitrim release footage of Barry McNulty's tour-de-force of six two-pointers
Fortune favours the two-point braves in Gaelic football. Long may it continue.
With 3-18 across three games, Murtagh shining as Roscommon's shooting star
It had been well signposted not least in the second round group game loss to Armagh, where in the Cuala man’s injury enforced absence, the Dublin attack was devoid of order and threat. He returned to kick five points against Derry to ensure they made the play-offs but dogged by a hamstring injury, that would be his last start and his team’s last chance.
In the aftermath, not least of the Armagh defeat, there was much steepling of hands and pursing of lips, with the theory that it was in Dublin’s DNA to play a structured attacking game to bring the ball into the scoring zone to take on low percentage attempts, and the new rules had muddled their thinking.
There may have been a grain of truth in that, but the more obvious explanation is that in a game where a greater weight is now placed on individual ability, not least in terms of kicking skills, Dublin have only one player who has the skill-set to answer that challenge.
Strip it all back and if Dublin does not have its king, it simply has no way to rule.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Con O’Callaghan’s brilliance is the Dubs’ only answer to football’s new challenges
LAST SATURDAY NIGHT in Croke Park, Con O’Callaghan challenged the theory that nostalgia is a file used to knock the rough edges off the good old days.
In fact, he flipped it on its head by showing that instead it can be used to escape the reality of the hard new times which Dublin football now inhabits.
An eyesore of a game played out in a ghostly atmosphere, for those who watched on shivering from the sparsely attended Hill, the only tangible link – and therefore accompanying warmth – with the glory days came packaged inside the number 14 shirt.
Yes, there were others, but they were not instantly recognisable. Ciarán Kilkenny and Brian Howard sported moustaches, while Niall Scully’s black shadow hinted at growth to come on that front.
It was curious – and given what unfolded out on the pitch any kind of curiosity was welcome – and it left us wondering could this outbreak of razor shyness be less about fashion and more about survival.
After Ger Brennan’s threatened purge of veterans, was this all part of a cunning new plan so that the old-timers could skip past security at Parnell Park, furnished with new identities.
As for King Con, he looked and, more importantly, played the same, kicking eight points to finally see off the dogged but limited resistance of a Monaghan side, whose acceptance of demotion to a lower tier was reflected by playing like a team already there.
Truth is, though, they should still have won and would have but for O’Callaghan.
Dublin’s dysfunction was pervasive, they struggled on their kick-outs, their defence was so porous and distracted they coughed up SEVEN goal chances but nothing jarred like their impotence in front of the posts.
In their pomp as the game’s greatest, they changed how we looked and spoke about football, they introduced the notion of a scoring zone and turned it into a killing one. If they did not introduce the metric of execution levels, they claimed its ownership, posting figures north of 80% for conversion rates that became the standard for those who hopelessly sought to match them.
In the first half on Saturday evening, they had 19 kicks at the posts and converted seven, which comes in at 36%.
These days that is an execution rate which only rears its head in a married versus singles beery St Stephen’s Day kick around at a pitch near you.
This was not just Dublin as we knew them, this was not football as we have grown to know it.
Four minutes before half-time, O’Callaghan turned down tapping over a routine free from the edge of the square to kick it back outside the arc in an attempt to double the value, but Ross McGarry’s effort barely passed the point where the original kick was taken from.
The only way it would have worked was for O’Callaghan to catch his own set-up kick and, as good as he is, he has limits.
In many ways, he was the original boy wonder before the other wonder arrived, but the Messi/Ronaldo conversation so richly anticipated in Gaelic football has never really taken off.
That is more a reflection on Dublin’s decline than his ability, but the fear now is that we are fast running out of time for them to engage.
In less than two months, O’Callaghan will celebrate his 30th birthday and by early summer he will have joined the century club – he has already racked up 93 appearances, with, in a timely coincidence that should rhyme this weekend, his first coming off the bench in a 2016 league clash with Kerry in Croke Park.
Those are only numbers, but what really separates O’Callaghan and David Clifford is the potent sense that Dublin and Kerry are on diverging roads travelling at very different speeds, which might sound a little odd given that less than three years have passed since Dublin extended their unbeaten All-Ireland final record against the Kingdom to a fifth game.
Indeed, had O’Callaghan been fit for the 2022 All-Ireland semi-final, there is a compelling case to be made that Clifford might have had to wait until last summer to finally pocket that first Celtic Cross.
Outside of three All-Ireland finals, the pair have only shared the same pitch on two other occasions with O’Callaghan – he nailed a hat-trick of goals the last time they met in the 2024 league clash – having never lost.
What unites them is a perception that both counties are unhealthily dependent on their leading men, but that is a truth which weighs heavier on Dublin than Kerry.
Nailing down Clifford gets a team halfway to beating Kerry, but then there is the creativity of his older brother Paudie, the scoring threat of Seanie O’Shea, the surging power of Joe O’Connor and the most dynamic half-back line in the game, all of which have to be dealt with.
It is not that O’Callaghan is alone, but the supporting cast is bare to the bone. Kilkenny, no matter what disguise he wears, is an all-time great – and at the top of the list of best footballers to have never been honoured as player of the year – while Sean Bugler is an incisive and potent presence in attack.
But, after that, where do Dublin go? Last summer, there was not even a sense of mild surprise when Dublin exited at the last eight stage to Tyrone with a whimper, as a half-fit O’Callaghan could only be deployed from the bench.
It had been well signposted not least in the second round group game loss to Armagh, where in the Cuala man’s injury enforced absence, the Dublin attack was devoid of order and threat. He returned to kick five points against Derry to ensure they made the play-offs but dogged by a hamstring injury, that would be his last start and his team’s last chance.
In the aftermath, not least of the Armagh defeat, there was much steepling of hands and pursing of lips, with the theory that it was in Dublin’s DNA to play a structured attacking game to bring the ball into the scoring zone to take on low percentage attempts, and the new rules had muddled their thinking.
There may have been a grain of truth in that, but the more obvious explanation is that in a game where a greater weight is now placed on individual ability, not least in terms of kicking skills, Dublin have only one player who has the skill-set to answer that challenge.
Strip it all back and if Dublin does not have its king, it simply has no way to rule.
*****
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Con O’Callaghan Dublin GAA Gaelic Football King Con