What Dublin don’t get credit for is how gritty they are.
Yes, they’re talented: skillful, beautiful and downright powerful. Yes, they’ve got a big population, money and whatever else. But they’re savages. They work damn hard. They bust their balls and they’re hungrier than most other teams.
Back in 2014, Ryan McHugh sliced open the chest of Dublin and went straight for their heart with no fear, no mercy and no bloody respect. They were there to be beaten, the men we called unbeatable, and he went at them viciously to show everyone just how beatable they really were.
But Dublin are a completely different animal now. They’ve come on no end since that fateful semi-final and, yes, they’ve destroyed all in sight after it. Two leagues, two All-Irelands, and now a 32-game unbeaten league and championship run.
Whilst their talent and their attacking threat obviously helps, it’s their defence and their ruthlessness that sets them apart.
But even at that, they must be getting f**king sick of watching Ryan McHugh reel away in celebration with his two fists clenched and their net rippling.
He did it twice when they beat them in that epic in 2014. He did it last year in the quarter-final when Dublin exacted revenge. He did it again in Ballybofey on Sunday.
But, nowadays, he’s doing it with red target dots all over his chest, head, and back. The Dubs are all too familiar with the threat of the Kilcar man so they don’t allow him to breathe anymore.
Dublin are never going to give Ryan McHugh any space ever again, are they?
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) February 26, 2017
They know if they let McHugh roam freely, he can inflict more than just flesh wounds on the capital’s defence systems. He’s got a direct line straight to the arteries.
So it’s unbelievable what the youngster – yes, he’s still a youngster – is still doing even with the attention he’s getting.
Take a 60-second spell in the first half of Donegal’s draw with Dublin on Sunday as one example of what is consistently happening.
Ryan McHugh starts yet another attack.
Ryan McHugh is stopped from going any further.
Everywhere he moves, he is checked and blocked.
Yet he still finds pockets of space and he still manages to bomb forward and get off the leash for moments of unhinged danger.
He manages to get free in the same move.
So he’s dragged to ground.
Donegal go on and score a goal to draw level.
Seconds later, McHugh literally ghosts into space again.
He gives Cluxton the eyes and does what is becoming a scary habit: buries the ball in the Dublin net.
Everywhere McHugh goes now against Dublin, he is tagged. He has hands on him all the time, he’s pushed, pulled and fouled and any manager in their right minds would tell their players to do exactly the same to him.
So Dublin don’t let him out of their sights.
And yet, sometimes, all they can do is watch on at his brilliance.
What he’s doing under that sort of scrutiny is very, very special. And yet you’d expect nothing less of the man now. He’s only getting better. That’s the real frightening thing.
By the end of 2017, the name Ryan McHugh will be on every lip all over the island, writes @ConanDoherty https://t.co/rDuhsJGkAx
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) December 31, 2016
