Thursday, April 28, 2011

Dublin must take big boys hurling attitude

AND so Dublin Gaels’ turn their lonely eyes to Anthony Daly’s hurlers. Excuse the melodrama but the Dubs are holding out for heroes right now and they’re not known for their patience.

Their footballers will come good but possibly not speedily enough. Whereas this weekend the other code presents a quick plaster for the sores of Sunday gone.

The novelty of the footballers getting to a first final in 12 years is nothing compared to the 65 years the capital’s hurlers have had to wait to reach the decider this year.

Hurling being hurling, Dublin hurling being Dublin hurling, there won’t be as much made of Daly’s men in the final. There’ll be no Thursday or Friday morning press conference. He wouldn’t want it that way anyway.

But they can beat Kilkenny. The alarmingly worrying injury list Brian Cody now has to contend with is worse than it was when the counties played out an interesting if modest draw earlier this month.

They might not have finished on top of Division 1, results may have gone against their general play but Dublin have been the best performers in this year’s league. That draw against Kilkenny, even if the point was one at the death by Paul Ryan, was a game they should have won.

They should have beaten Waterford first day out but had to settle for a draw. They should have beaten Galway but ended up being hit with a sucker-punch of a goal by Eanna Ryan in the closing stages.

Their players may actually feel they were lucky to get through to a league final. It’s what a lot of other people are saying. But even without a killer instinct, their victories have been so much more encouraging than Kilkenny’s, some of which have left their supporters cold.

That comes down to expectations, of course, and the pervading feeling in Kilkenny their most golden of golden eras could be coming to an end – or already has.

But if Daly’s men are considering themselves fortunate for being where they are this week preparing for a national final then they have the wrong headset.

Luck comes with effort and there has been no end of that from Daly’s men as they have moved further and further away from that dark, dark day against Antrim last year.

If they want to be recognised as a team who can sit at the top table, they have to start thinking and acting like it.

So it was with a bit of frustration that this writer listened to the affable Daly speak about the aforementioned three games, which threatened to derail their league final aspirations.

Speaking before the win over Cork, he was asked about how much of an impact picking two points up from the three games would have on his men.

“Rather than forgetting them, we would use them as positive memories rather than negative ones. This is Dublin we’re talking about.”

This is Dublin we’re talking about! This is Dublin we’re talking about! Sorry, Anthony, but that poor mouth guff doesn’t wash anymore.

If you want to play with the big boys, if you want to be judged alongside the big boys, you have to accept being under the microscope.

Daly has taken particular exception to the amount of attention drawn to the amount of wides his team have totalled in recent games. There was a decent improvement in the Cork game but 36 wides in two games is a statistic that can’t just be ignored.

As already mentioned, his side have shown a lack of a killer instinct although there were indications in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last day out they are developing one.

They have more than the necessary basics to get to an All-Ireland semi-final. Hell, they have enough to make a fist of a mighty Leinster campaign, upsetting the idea that a Kilkenny-Galway final is already set in stone.

They play an attractive brand of hurling as well but even without the excellent Stephen Hiney, David Treacy and Joey Boland they have pushed on. They have a solid spine to their team. Daire Plunkett is a hare with a hurley. Conal Keaney, in time, will return to the personal heights he reached before football took centre-stage.

But the more they are reminded they are “just” Dublin, the more they will be held back or should that be the more they will hold themselves back.

No doubt, they are reminded most, if not every time, they go out on the field to play one of the established hurling counties where they come from. What they have come from. Where are their medals.

For all we know, Daly could be telling his players in the sanctuary of training they are the greatest hurlers in the country. But transmitting an assured image of them in the media is vital.

We’re not saying he should do an Arsene Wenger and ignore all of his team’s faults but Dublin can be more than Dublin. They just need to believe it. Anthony Daly needs to be telling us that.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/ZWrzEEgQzm8/post.aspx

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