It is an absolute pleasure watching Dublin play football.
Technically, the way they attack is nothing short of a wet dream. The way they tackle is text book.
Physically, their speed and strength witnessed live is almost unbelievable.
Mentally, they’re as fierce and as ferocious as they come. They’re insatiable. In front or behind, they come forward in droves, they hound the ball back and they just can’t score enough. They keep coming and coming. It is non-stop for 70 minutes and any man who enters the arena to face off with them won’t forget it in a hurry.
It’s a team to be proud of. It’s a team the entire island should give its dues to.
Dublin are coached by one of the best managers in the game and, systematically, they are very, very clever. They are very damn solid.
But it is that last aspect of this once-in-a-lifetime team that people are so slow to acknowledge, never mind embrace.
Dublin haven’t gotten to four league finals in a row now, they didn’t win four trophies last season, and Jim Gavin sure as hell hasn’t amassed two All-Irelands already by falling for this foolish notion that football teams shouldn’t be allowed to defend.
Dublin play loads of men behind the ball and they do it often. What on earth is wrong with that?
No-one has given a straight, logical answer to that simple question yet. Ever.
Teams defend in numbers and Dublin do too. They did it that night in Croker against Derry last year when they avoided flak because they were: a) at home; and b) victorious. Derry, of course, were charged with the murder of football.
Snapshot of Dublin with just the 13 behind this time. Derry being jeered for not kicking it down their throats #GAA pic.twitter.com/wSLt73Mxxl
— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) March 28, 2015
They booed Brian McIver’s team for setting up conservatively when they didn’t want to be caught out themselves at the back – like they were the year previous against Donegal.
Dublin did it when they had to in a rain-ruined All-Ireland final last September against Kerry.
And they did it again on Sunday when they had 14 men inside their own 65-metre line.
Dublin's defence.
Presented without comment.
(Snapchat: sportsjoe.ie) pic.twitter.com/LOQq9jGk1C
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 10, 2016
The only problem is the perceived problem.
A lot of Dublin fans went along with the scaremongering from the top – that it was bad to defend, that it was impure to play smart, and that it wasn’t manly or noble to double up on an attacker. Then Dublin saw a lot of teams approach with caution when they came to face the most deadly side in Ireland on the biggest and best pitch in the country. And the fans didn’t like it. They didn’t like that teams weren’t rolling over for them.
So they held themselves up as the moral compass of football because they were suddenly told with no explanation that there was a right and a wrong way. Then they scoffed at teams who were afraid of them and they tried to taunt them out of their shielded defence.
By the time the counter-attacking game plan started working for them too, there was too much pretense to go back on. They had grown too comfortable on that high horse to come down and accept that there was nothing actually there worth scowling about in the first place.
The irony of it is, on Sunday, Hill 16 roared and cheered and applauded its 14-man back line for slowing down the game and eventually winning the ball back after 90 seconds of nothing but pure defence. Puke football, as it was called when Tyrone or Derry or Donegal did it.
They appreciated the effort, they took strength in their steeliness, and they grew excited as that defence was transformed into a cut-throat counter attack.
The irony was that it was what Donegal did when they hit 3-14 against them doing the exact same thing in 2014.
And the irony was that, on Sunday, Dublin kicked 1-20 of some of the finest scores you’ll see all year and they did it with this big, bad blanket defence in place when they needed it.
Once again, they produced some of the finest, most frightening, most foam-inducing football we’re unlikely to ever see again when this team dissipates. They got the best out of Bernard Brogan because they were hitting Donegal for six on the break – turnover, kick, kick, and Brogan did the rest. They had Ciaran Kilkenny and Paul Flynn striding the length of the field as if it was a five-a-side game and Cian O’Sullivan was directing traffic – inbound and outbound.
Philly McMahon set up a goal, Johnny Cooper scored.
They did it all because of their set-up. The team is designed to get the best out of these individuals and these individuals are in place to get the best out of this team.
There’s nothing shameful about bringing players behind the ball. There’s nothing logical to suggest that you shouldn’t do it.
Effect or beauty – neither is right or wrong, no matter how much you’re told otherwise.
Some teams play effectively, some teams play beautifully. Jim Gavin’s team does both.
Dublin are the most beautiful and most effective team in the country. It’s only their fans that would tell you otherwise now.
It’s only their fans who are ashamed of it.
