JACK O’CONNOR FEELS Dublin might be timing their run as they prepare for an All-Ireland semi-final with Mayo in two weeks.
The Sky Blues kicked 20 points against Kildare in this Leinster final win but it didn’t quell talk that they’re coming back into the pack.
An eight-point win over Wexford preceded a six-point semi-final victory against Meath, before todays eight-point winning margin. It’s fair to say Dublin are not showing the short of ruthless attacking streak of recent seasons, but perhaps getting challenged in Leinster is not a bad thing either.
“I think they’ll probably have to improve a bit if they’re going to go the distance but who’s to say that improvement isn’t in them?” surmised O’Connor after the game.
“They might be just timing their run and there’s only one day you need to peak, I suppose, and you know when that is.
“Dublin, they’re seasoned team, who’s to say they wouldn’t have raised their game again?
“They do keep the ball very well and they frustrate you by the amount of time they keep the ball,” he added.
The three-time All-Ireland winning boss felt some of the media discussion before the game was harsh on Kildare, who sealed promotion to the top flight during the league.
O’Connor did not reference who in particular he was referring to, but his sense was that a heavy beating was predicted for his team.
“I’m not going to sit here and start critiquing Dublin, I’m more interested in Kildare,” he stated.
“I thought some of the commentary during the week was a bit over the top. People (were) talking about (us) getting trimmings and getting hammerings and (conceding) four and five goals, and all that.
“Maybe those people don’t realise that those Kildare players are putting the same effort into it as every other county. We’re all putting a lot of time into it so that was never going to happen.
“From a Kildare point of view, we set up pretty well, we had a game plan that lads stuck to by and large, with just a little bit of composure up the other end I thought we could have made aright game of it.
“Eight points is still a fair gap now. You’d like to think that Dublin can’t go on forever and maybe in the next couple of years that Kildare will continue to close that gap because Kildare is a big county, 220-odd thousand people.
“We need to be competing at the top table, we need to be playing big games here and that’s the message I got two years ago, to freshen the panel, make Kildare competitive again.
“We can only do that by getting back to Division 1 playing games against top-class opposition, knowing where the level and the standard is and let’s see where that goes after this.”
Kildare left 14 scoring chances behind them and they were energy killers after they worked so hard to create opportunities against the Dublin defence.
Daniel Flynn’s wonder goal in the 62nd minute brought Kildare to within five and they never looked like they had the firepower to threaten Dublin in the finale.
“I thought we had opportunities out there, I wasn’t taking the stats but I’m fairly certain that we dropped five or six into the goalie, kicked a few poor wides, didn’t seem to be getting and close decisions or marginal decisions that might have gone for us another day.
“I just thought we had opportunities but at the end of the day we got beaten by eight so it’s hard to disagree with the scoreboard but I certainly thought we could have made it a lot closer. Sure what can you can do now, the result is the result and that’s it.”
He conceded the losses of Kevin Feely, Paul Cribbin and Eoin Doyle to injury made their challenge all the more difficult for this young squad.
“Another thing that the media didn’t pick up was that we came up last year, we picked an initial panel of 39 players there’s only 16 or 17 of those left.
“So we’ve got an awful lot of youth and energy into the panel and this is our first year really having a go at this so I think they’ve made good strides in the first year and you would expect that they will keep improving.
“Being the underdogs, we needed everything to go for us and we came into the game without one of the best midfielders in the country in Kevin Feely and probably one of the best man-markers in the game in Eoin Doyle and also Paul Cribbin, who was having a great year for us, very athletic wing-forward.
“We would need all those resources. The Dublins and the Kerrys and the Tyrones and that can afford to be without a couple of players, whereas we probably wouldn’t. That’s the harsh reality of it and we’ve had our share of injuries, particularly for this game which is very disappointing for those (players).
“We’ve had our share of injuries, particularly for this game which was very disappointing for those three players after the length of time they have soldiered for Kildare that they weren’t part of this today.
“Regardless of the result, I thought the Kildare players showed massive heart out there. I don’t know how ye guys saw it but they did we asked of them. A little bit of composure on the finishing and that would have been very interesting after the last water break.”
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