Dean Rock has done a lot for Dublin already but this was the kick.
This was the kick that set him apart.
This was the kick that showed he had the stones, the bottle, the nerve.
This was the kick that will put him down in Dublin folklore – the one that his whole life was building towards.
Here's another look at Dean Rock's winning point from today's All-Ireland Football Final as he kept his cool as @DubGAAOfficial beat Mayo pic.twitter.com/Mlz8hBV8sn
— The GAA (@officialgaa) September 17, 2017
If the occasion wasn’t one thing and if the importance and the time weren’t another, and if Dean Rock was really able to block out the 80 plus thousand rapturous Gaels who had turned Croke Park into a cauldron during a ding-dong All-Ireland football final, he also had some other external distractions to deal with.
The Mayo players tried three different things to put him off during that decisive free kick.
- They encroached on his space.
- They ran to the side to catch his eye.
- They even seemed to throw something towards the ball.
He held his nerve though. He executed.
And, during TG4’s brilliant coverage of the ladies finals on Sunday, Rock spoke about the distractions and how they didn’t alter one thing he was trying to do.
“Look, there are always a number of distractions when you’re trying to take a free kick,” he said.
“It’s really important, as a free-taker, to stay as focused as you can, really focus on the ball and focus on the strike and that’s all I was trying to do.
“I knew if I got a good purchase on the kick, the rest would take care of itself.”
It didn’t matter what Lee Keegan did or didn’t do. It didn’t matter what was going on around him or what any of the Mayo players did – stuff we’d all do if we were about to watch our All-Ireland dreams die.
All that mattered to Dean Rock was the ball. He stayed in the zone, he stayed cool and he stayed focused solely on the ball.
Right now, he won’t be drawn on trivial matters. He has far too much class for that, a champion’s class.
Besides, all the rest, as he says himself, is history.
