Anyone for a trip to Mullingar
This summer will mark nine long years since Dublin football supporters had to fire up their sat-navs and find their way outside of the capital for a game in the Leinster championship or the All-Ireland series. June 2006 and a clash with Longford in Pearse Park is the only time in almost a decade that the Boys in Blue played away from their spiritual home of Croke Park in the championship.
Critics suggest that playing all their games in the championship at home is a massive advantage, while for those in favour of keeping the All-Ireland favourites in the capital ,they feel that no other side can draw upwards of 30,000 people to a provincial quarter final.
Leinster chairman John Horan revealed at the launch of this year’s Leinster championships in Farmleigh that the Council has a contract with Croke Park for at least four games a year to be played there, while this season out of 22 matches only six will be played in Drumcondra.
Dublin’s championship opener is later this month against either Longford or Offaly, and manager Jim Gavin has no issue if his team were to perform away from home,
‘We’ll play and we’ve always played where we’re told to play. We’ve had seven games on the road this year and all very enjoyable from Newbridge to Killarney to Castlebar and they are great times. You get more time with your team when you play away and there’s lots of advantages to being on the road.’
‘We just get on with it and it doesn’t make a difference to us. The way teams prepare themselves once the ball is thrown in and players get on the pitch their focus is on the game and not the venue. There may be even an advantage to teams who spend more time together on the day.’
Dublin’s preparation for the championship has once again been aided by a Allianz league success-making history as they claimed a third title-in-a-row with a comprehensive win over Cork last month. Their spring campaign was marked by a number of impressive performances, while the game against Derry was highlighted as the nadir of defensive football. The Dublin boss has no fear that teams will try and go ultra defensive as a tactic during the championship against his side,
‘I think you’ll see all different types of football being played over the summer. I don’t think any team will set themselves up to play one particular style of football and I think teams are very adaptable. I think that’s the way the summer will go.’
‘During the league we’ve seen how some teams like to play that(defensive) style and some go more expansive. All of our work goes on how we want to play the game and what tactics team use is a great challenge for us to meet different systems.
‘That was one of the more enjoyable aspects of the league that we met so many different systems and styles and we worked our way through them and that was good to come through that in a positive manner.’
Dublin are looking to record a fifth straight provincial success this summer with Jim Gavin’s side racking up twenty points or more in their three championship games last season. No side has managed to come close to toppling them from their perch in the province in the last number of years and recently Bryan Cullen suggested it does the county more harm than good. He felt that a lack of competitiveness in Leinster meant the county were left ‘sleepwalking’ into tougher tests in the Autumn. Gavin doesn’t agree,
‘Any game that we’ve played, that we’ve done well in, it’s a lot of hard work goes into preparing for the game. It’s not a matter of just turning up at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon to play the game. A lot of preparation goes into it from the players’ perspective and the management’s perspective so all of those victories are hard won.’‘We’ll take the exact same approach that we have done for all of our games, be it O’Byrne Cup, National League or Championship – that’s to get a performance on the field. If we can get that then the results will come.’
