Dean Rock
By John Harrington
Dean Rock had no doubt Dublin would find a way to get something out of Saturday night’s Allianz Football League draw with Tyrone.
It looked their 30 match unbeaten run in the League and Championship would not extend to a 31st match when they trailed by five points with little over ten minutes to play.
But in the face of adversity they summoned a late surge that earned a draw. Rock, who kicked the equalising point in injury-time, was not surprised they had the character to do so.
“I would have had no doubt that if we were in that position that we would dig ourselves out of it,” he said.
“It’s only when you go the well you know what is going to come out of it. Everyone dug in when it really matter and you can see with in the last ten or 12 minutes the pace we were playing at and really going after it that it wasn’t an issue in terms of mindset. Lads really wanted to win.
“It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, everyone is competitive individually and collectively.
“We don’t like losing, we want to go out and represent the jersey well and if that means getting wins that means getting wins, we are lucky enough not to lose the other night but we were proud of ourselves in terms of how we came out and battled in the last five or ten minutes.
“We're only really back into the groove for the last three or four weeks but the main thing you want from teams at this stage of the season is mindset and we had that in bucket loads the other night in terms of our character and when the fight was there we really dug in for each other and got the draw.”
It was just their second competitive match of the season for most of this Dublin panel whereas Tyrone had the benefit of a successful McKenna Cup campaign under their belts.
Dean Rock
The Ulster side looked sharper physically, so it was Dublin’s mental strength that really dragged them back into the contest.
“Yeah, ultimately it was, Tyrone are probably a month or two ahead of us in terms of fitness and games under the belt in the McKenna cup but it really was down to grit and determination for that last couple of minutes,” says Rock.
“We wouldn’t have been happy with the first 60 minutes only scoring five or six points and we knew ourselves in the pitch that we needed to up it for the last couple of minutes.
“A few messages went out to the group individually players would have just talked to players on the pitch - let’s up it - and things like that and we managed to respond to it. That was the most pleasing thing, our response to that challenge. Mentally everyone is in a good place and, yeah, it was reassuring."
It looked like Dublin were determined not to let their long unbeaten run end, but Rock insists that’s not a primary source of motivation for them.
“No, like it never once comes up in our conversations,” he says. “I wasn’t even aware of a number up until I suppose after the Cavan game. It wasn’t really in the media, or it wasn’t really said out in the public domain as such.
"I think people have just catched onto it in the last couple of weeks, certainly nothing that we would play on at all. It’s certainly not our motivation to keep going to stay unbeaten.
“In that essence it’s pretty much irrelevant for us really, especially at this stage of the season. I suppose we just pride ourselves on winning games and being very hard to beat.”
