There are three changes to the Dublin team listed on your match day programme.
Three crucial changes – each of them with a specific purpose and each of them paying rich, rich dividends.
24) Eoin Murchan comes in.
Eoin is tasked with silencing Niall Sludden. Eoin succeeds.
26) John Small comes in.
John, you will follow Peter Harte. Job done.
22) Jack McCaffrey comes in.
That means James McCarthy goes to midfield and that means Mattie Donnelly is nullified.
What the changes also mean is that Brian Howard can play at wing forward and destroy Tyrone from there and they mean Brian Fenton is without any instruction but to get on the ball and few players do that better than Brian Fenton.
Dublin were limited in Healy Park, they got it tight, they had to hang on but, yet again, they did so. They walked into the lion’s den, kicked all of its favourite teeth out and walked back out unscathed and they did that because they were navigated inch-perfectly by Jim Gavin who put on another tactical masterclass in not just crippling the opposition strength, but in unleashing his own arsenal.
On The GAA Hour, Colm Parkinson was full of praise for the Dublin manager and what he did in Tyrone.
“I don’t think it can be underestimated how spectacularly brilliant the Dublin management team are at getting their match-ups right, getting their team selections right,” Wooly said.
“You look at Éamonn Fitzmaurice and he’s struggling to find his right team.
“Dublin never get this wrong. Sludden was taken care of. Harte was taken care of. Donnelly was taken care of.Â
“All by Small – who hadn’t played a few games. Murchan who’s only new. McCarthy, who had been in the backs all year.Â
“Bang, bang, bang. Men looked after.
“And I always thought, ‘who’s going to pick Cavanagh up because it’s a good tactic for Tyrone’ but the other night it just showed him up because Fenton got his hand on a mountain of ball. You can’t just leave Fenton.”
Listen to the full discussion on Dublin v Tyrone from 43:30 below.
