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Denis Bastick column - Dublin's date with destiny

GAA.ie columnist Denis Bastick.

GAA.ie columnist Denis Bastick.

By Denis Bastick

Dublin’s preparation for last year’s All-Ireland semi-final clash with Tyrone was some of the most intense physical training I ever experienced in my inter-county career.

There were conditioned games in tight spaces with relentless intensity, massive amounts of body contact and physicality – loads of extra attention paid to the starting 15 and not all of it legal, but a lot let go to get them ready for the ferocious battle we expected to meet.

That battle never materialised as we know. Con O’Callaghan’s bullet of a goal after five minutes killed the game.

Tyrone had no answer and Dublin had no let up.

As I said here before, Dublin’s exceptional performance against Mickey Harte’s men last summer was the product of three years of work that was put into coming up with a strategy to perform and counteract the mass defence.

People on the day see the match but they don’t see the hours upon hours and months of video work, tactical play, training sessions and walk throughs on the pitch to get everything right and everyone ready.

These Dublin guys studied every inch of Tyrone and this weekend they play them for the third time this season and will have their homework done.

Tyrone will put a lot of store in the fact that when they met a few weeks ago in Omagh that they finished the game strongly and had a flurry of late scores.

Con O'Callaghan scores Dublin's first goal against Tyrone in the 2017 All-Ireland SFC Final. 

Con O'Callaghan scores Dublin's first goal against Tyrone in the 2017 All-Ireland SFC Final. 

But I think Dublin will have sensed a weakness in Tyrone from what happened in Healy Park.

Whether it was in preparation for Dublin or preparation for Donegal or whoever’s call it was – none of that matters - the tightening of the pitch was a sign of weakness by Tyrone.

A confident team will take you on anywhere and won’t care about the width of the pitch and I felt Tyrone showed a weakness by trying to mess with Dublin by messing with the dimensions.

Of course, the tighter confines increased the physicality the ferocity and the intensity – and Dublin passed the test with flying colours.

The tighter pitch made it a close encounter and there were some huge hits on both sides and it was a far cry from last year’s semi-final, but Dublin had an answer for everything Tyrone had on the day and it was when Dublin were emptying the bench that Tyrone were able to find opportunities to reduce the score.

That game will really have stood to Dublin because up until that point the Championship have come very easily for them. Leinster was taken in their stride and Donegal were weakened by not having Paddy McBrearty available to threaten them.

The first massive test was the Championship game in Omagh and they got the win.

Fast forward to this Sunday and Tyrone step out onto a Croke Park pitch that is 88 meters wide, and in front of a big crowd it’ll be too vast to have yourself heard shouting at a colleague only 20 metres away. There will be no place to hide.

Stephen Cluxton leads his Dublin team-mates out onto the field before their All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Final Phase 2 clash with Tyrone this year. 

Stephen Cluxton leads his Dublin team-mates out onto the field before their All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Final Phase 2 clash with Tyrone this year. 

For all of that, Tyrone will have themselves convinced they are in a great position. Massive underdogs against the four in a row chasing champions. Nothing to lose and it all to gain. Go out and have a go. That is a great place to be in.

The problem is that the pressure and expectancy is still on them. Their collapse last year reminded me of Dublin’s implosion against Kerry in 2009 when a goal right at the start of the quarter final with Kerry left us floundering and we’d lose by 17 points. It shouldn’t have mattered with all that time left to play – but back then it did and psychologically that Dublin team was brittle and lacked confidence.

Fast forward that to 2016 when Kerry go in for two goals in quick succession in the first half and it didn’t matter. Dublin backed themselves to find a way.

Everyone is wondering what are Tyrone and Mickey Harte going to do? How will they set up? Will they come out and play or try and stifle?

We won’t know until Sunday at 3.30 but I’m confident that Dublin and Jim Gavin will be prepared for whatever type of game plan Tyrone try and deploy. That’s what this Dublin team do best – they rehearse and drill and believe themselves and in their players that they will get over the line.

Dublin know that any Tyrone game plan must try and take Brian Fenton and Ciaran Kilkenny’s influence out of the game – that’s not easy to do for a full 70 minutes. They also need goals – lots of goals. The best way to do that is force turn overs high up the pitch – but that means Tyrone committing men up there. That’s the conundrum for Harte if he still wants to defend in numbers.

Dublin will make sure that there are specialist men detailed to man mark Niall Sludden, Peter Harte and Mattie Donnelly. They have been very effective in shutting them down in the past and these three Tyrone players are under pressure to have big games this weekend.

Dublin's John Small beats Peter Harte to the ball in the 2017 All-Ireland SFC semi-final. 

Dublin's John Small beats Peter Harte to the ball in the 2017 All-Ireland SFC semi-final. 

What approach Dublin take to Colm Cavanagh remains to be seen. He will drop deep in the covering role he is so good at, but I’m not convinced he merits a specialist man marker and know this at painful first hand.

I previously got a man marking job on Colm Cavanagh and followed him everywhere but soon found myself standing beside him on the edge of the Tyrone square, not offering anything to Dublin, in the way of my own forwards, and ultimately whipped off by management because of a lack of contribution.

I think Dublin can afford to let Cavanagh go in there and pick him up when he tries to come back out the field.

Dublin are going for four in row and while that won’t be openly discussed as a motivation in the camp, players will be aware of this being a special time in the history of Dublin GAA, that this team is in a special place and that they need to make the most of this opportunity.

They’ll also be hearing from friends and family about the lack of recognition that they have received. It bothered me last year that the 2017 victory was greeted as much as a Mayo heartache story rather than a Dublin victory. When you are in there playing it’s not something you seek as a motivation - but if you hear that back from family and friends often enough that the team are not getting a lot of outside credit I think that gets stored away.

The question has been asked why have Dublin not cut loose in finals? Well, you must give Mayo and Kerry credit for that. Two excellent teams who didn’t allow that to happen – although I would say that the 2015 win over the Kingdom was significantly more commanding that the three-point winning margin.

Dublin have not clicked in full since the Tyrone game last year. They have shown glimpses of that form and potential several times since, but it hasn’t been sustained.

There is a very strong chance that the Dubs have saved the best til last and that they will be on fire this weekend. They certainly have enough players who are due a big game and you’d be hoping that this is the time that Con O’Callaghan really hits form and repeats his goal scoring heroics of last summer.

Denis Bastick lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after Dublin's victory over Kerry in the 2015 All-Ireland SFC Final. 

Denis Bastick lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after Dublin's victory over Kerry in the 2015 All-Ireland SFC Final. 

I know what the mindset in that camp will be. It will be Mission First. On the Tuesday night before the 2015 All-Ireland final I awoke to find our family car had been stolen from outside our house. The baby buggy was in the boot. There was ticket money in the glove box. The Gardaí tracked it down and returned it via a tip off four days later. But I couldn’t let that get to me or my family. I had bigger fish to fry. I was starting in an All-Ireland final that Sunday. There are more important things than cars and buggys and nothing was going to get in the way of being ready to play.

This Dublin team have been around long enough to know what it takes and where they need to be at to perform.

They know better than anyone what level of performance will be required. Tyrone will have a plan and will try and limit them but it’s hard to do that over what will probably be 80 minutes of ferocious intensity.

It’s not the running and the jumping that takes it out of you in a big match like that – it’s the bumps and the hits and getting knocked down and having to get up to get stuck in again and again and again that can leave you drained.

Dublin have trained for this. So too have Tyrone. But experience is vital, and I believe on Sunday night Dublin will have won the Sam Maguire four years in a row with five points to spare.