Patient gardener Ger Brennan already reaping what he's sown

By John Harrington

On Tuesday evening last week, Dublin manager Ger Brennan was in Hyde Park for Cuala’s PTSB Dublin Senior Football League Division 1 clash with Thomas Davis.

Another six members of his management team were at various other club games and on the back of that scouting Brennan reckons they have a list of eight players they'll take a closer look at during next year’s O’Byrne Cup campaign.

The short-term priority is Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final with Kerry, but clearly Brennan is also committed to the medium to long-term betterment of Dublin football.

This year was always going to be a season of transition for Dublin, something underlined by the fact that nine players have made their senior championship debuts this summer under Brennan.

It’s a considerable achievement that they’ve still managed to reach the All-Ireland semi-finals despite that evolution in selection, and very encouraging that they seem to be now peaking at the most opportune time of the season.

How does Brennan himself assess how the team has developed thus far during his first year in charge?

“We started to tighten up the trialling process we went through from Round 5 of the National League," he says.

“I think it was Roscommon, Armagh and Galway in the last match where we strategically and tactically went a bit harder with what we were trying to get across.

“The rounds before that it was giving as many fellas a chance as possible and there was a risk associated with it in terms of relegation which obviously has happened but we were happy enough to take that risk with a bigger picture in mind.

“I thought the Wicklow game we were poor, I think our most comprehensive game all year was the semi-final against Louth in Portlaoise. We certainly dominated the majority of that match.

“We performed well at times in the Leinster final but didn't deserve to win. Credit to Westmeath, they deserved to win. But there were good elements of play there, the first half against Louth in the All-Ireland series there were elements of good play too but credit Louth, in the second half they just pushed on and we struggled and when you concede four goals in a Championship game you don't deserve to win anything.

“Second half against Cavan more recently, the lads did really well. Did really well against Donegal, would have liked to have been a couple of points maybe ahead going down the home stretch, but the effort and the performance and extra time really stood to the group.

“And then against Galway as well, performed really well for large elements of it. That third quarter, again we struggled, but then we finished strongly.

“So I suppose there's been good elements of our play on show since Round 5 of the National League and the challenge has always been to get a settled 15/22 to try to achieve those tactical aims and then to be able to extend the amount of minutes that those tactical aims are being executed on the field.

“With the new rules each game is like a rollercoaster and probably reflects our season and my experience of the season anyhow with the ups and downs.”

With forwards of the quality and experience of Con O’Callaghan, Ciarán Kilkenny, Paddy Small, Niall Scully, Colm Basquel, and Cormac Costello, Dublin certainly still have the sort of firepower you need to win the Sam Maguire Cup.

The big question about Ger Brennan’s first year in charge though was whether he’d be able to cobble together a new-look defence good enough to ensure Dublin would concede less than they could score.

It’s definitely been a work in progress over the course of the season, but since conceding four goals against Louth in the first round of the All-Ireland series a defensive sextet that includes two championship rookies in Eoin Kennedy and Charlie McMorrow has looked a lot more solid.

“Yeah, that was an obvious area that we needed to tighten up upon and we've gone a good way in improving it,” admits Brennan.

“It's going to be absolutely tested and rattled this Sunday against Kerry when you look at the firepower they have all over the field.

“Their top six and the guys they've been bringing in, that system is going to be pushed to the brink, so we'll do our best to try and keep the tide out for as long as possible

“And hopefully the lads up front can do the business when we do manage to get hands on ball.”

Getting their defensive match-ups right will be key for Dublin. Seán McMahon did a good job on David Clifford when the teams met in the League, holding him to three points from play, and it’s not ideal that his preparation for Sunday’s clash with the Kingdom has been hampered by what Brennan has described as “a nick in the hammer”.

Even if Dublin manage to successfully curtail Clifford as well as they did in that League match, Brennan is keenly aware he’ll need to think just as carefully about who he details to mark each of the other forwards in the Kerry attack.

“You have to cut your cloth to measure I think,” he says. “Friends have been saying to me, ‘what are you going to do with David Clifford?’ I say, ‘well what about Dylan Geaney, what about Paul Geaney, what about Paudie Clifford, Joe O'Connor, Diarmuid O'Connor, those lads, driving through?’

“Gavin White started his first game against Tyrone. So, there's so many threats all over the field, we'll do our best to find match-ups for as many of them as we can. I've actually been most impressed with their goalkeeper Shane Murphy, he's been super.

“Watching back the League Final this year where Donegal did particularly well on Shane Murphy in goal I think he's really stepped it up since that performance as well. His range of kicking, his option taking, he's quite calm and collected.

“For a guy who I think he may have won a Junior All-Ireland with Kerry in 2015 and came onto the panel in 2017, in many ways he's been a bridesmaid for a long, long time but he stuck at it and now he's the one at the altar and making things happen.

“So, let's try and do something to try and sort him out as well because he's giving Kerry a massive platform. Tyrone I think only won three of Kerry's kick-outs which is an incredible stat.”

It feels inevitable that Dublin will produce a very big performance against Kerry on Sunday, there is just too much experience and quality in their ranks for that not to happen.

Ciarán Kilkenny, Davy Byrne, Cormac Costello, Con O’Callaghan, Brian Howard, and Niall Scully alone have 40 All-Ireland medals between one another, so you can be sure they’ll be highly confident they can lower Kerry’s colours.

Brennan questioned the hunger of his veteran corps when Dublin fell to a six point defeat to Mayo in the League on February 1^st on a day when five of those six players were involved, and if he really did have any doubts about their willingness to go to the well again this year they’ve certainly allayed them with their performances in recent weeks.

“Ah, they have,” he admits. ”You don’t want to go out – even thinking back to my career and towards the end, picking up knocks and struggling with injuries – you don’t want to finish on a damp squib, you want to go out on your shield.

"If that means success in terms of silverware, brilliant. But, ultimately, the real success is going out on your shield. And to be remembered for that. And that is what we are seeing from some of those players.

“Some of them are coming to the end of their time, whether it is this year or next year. It is only a decision that they will make and their bodies quite often will make for them. We have certainly seen them step up in the last few games and that will only help the younger guys coming through.”

If there is one last kick in the what’s left of the generation of players that won six All-Irelands in a row for Dublin, then no better time than now to produce it.

Dublin-Kerry matches are always freighted with more meaning than any other for players from both counties, something Brennan himself knows only too well.

“To win an all-Ireland by beating Kerry along the way was always that bit different as a Dub,” he says.

“That was one of my abiding memories as a player. That was always in the background of my mind.

“The best Dublin-Kerry games I enjoyed are the ones I wasn’t involved in. That’s the truth. There is such a wonderful history there. You would be listening to podcasts and going for pints and meeting lads, and being on a couple of the shows if Dublin were playing. Thoroughly enjoyed those.

“But when you are in the mix, you have to just look at what is ahead of you. You take the learnings from what’s gone and you try to come up with some sort of strategy to give yourself a chance going into the next game.

“It is probably an unique position. In 2023, the All-Ireland final, Dublin were probably the favourites going into it. On this occasion, Kerry are certainly the stand-out favourites and all the pressure is on them, in terms of their manager and all the experience of their coaching staff.

“We are a fledging management group in a lot of ways, with a new squad and a new panel. There is not a whole lot of pressure on us going into this match. We are just trying to ensure that we give ourselves a chance to be there or thereabouts going down the home stretch.

“It is going to be tight either way, and hopefully we will come out the right side of it and I will be chatting to ye again next week.”