Another day and another win for Dublin.
Tyrone showed tremendous heart and plenty of courage in Omagh, but any time they really put the pressure on Dublin, they were calmly placed straight in front of the drawing board.
The home crowd would roar, Tiernan McCann or Padraig Hampsey would belt out a passionate fist-pump and Dublin would go down the other end of the field and just tack on another point.
And then either Ciaran Kilkenny, John Small or even Philly bloody McMahon would turn around and run back over the grass they’d just flattened with their heads down and their faces machine-like.
It must be eerie for their opposition to see these boys react to a score with such a business-minded ruthlessness.
After his goal James McCarthy couldn’t get back to centre back quick enough.
This Dublin team is an absolute machine and though many have been claiming that chinks are appearing in their armour this year, they’re still clearly as psychologically cold and as hell-bent on beating everyone and everything that stands in front of them just as they were for the last three years they won All-Irelands in.
A team’s response to adversity is what separates the best from the rest and whatever Tyrone did on Saturday evening, Dublin did better.
Only once did the Red Hand County lead Jim Gavin’s men in this Super 8s Round two clash, and that was after just ten minutes of the game. Dean Rock had restored parity by minute 11.
Tyrone got it back to level pegging after 20 minutes, Brian Howard pointed to put Dublin back in the driving seat after 21.
And then Dublin began to stretch their legs. Two points became the standard cushion now and even though they let up a little after stretching their lead to six at one stage in that second half, they always had Tyrone at arms’ length.
Tyrone whittled it down to two with a free to make it one after 71 minutes. Ronan O’Neill missed that and Paul Flynn pointed less than a minute after O’Neill shook his head at his miscued effort.
Everyone in the country outside of Dublin wanted to see Jim Gavin’s men beaten tonight because the underdog always draws the support of the neutral. Everyone needed an excuse after Dublin did what they always do again and even though it could and should have been accepted that if Ronan O’Neill’s free, or if Tiernan McCann’s pass at the very end when they were chasing a goal to win it hadn’t gone astray – Tyrone might actually have got back into it – it’s an awful lot easier to blame somebody else.
That somebody else is always the referee. Yes David Coldrick may have been a few borderline calls that went Dublin’s way instead of Tyrone’s but Tyrone still had the chances to win it here that they didn’t take. They can’t blame the referee for those.
As the great DJ Carey once said, it’s not fair to blame the referee when you had the chances yourself.
“Im in hurling ten or twelve years, I make piles of mistake on the field, but I’m never held to account for it. I’ve never known a referee to deliberately make the mistake, even though they make it. We just have to live with it and move on.”
If this game was in Croke Park Dublin’s home advantage would have been cited. There will always be something to cling to but sometimes the truth is just straight out there in front of us.
Everyone was blaming the referee on Saturday night as David Coldrick took a roasting for his performance. Dublin’s 16th man they said – in truth, Dublin don’t need a 16th man because if Tyrone were good enough, the chances were there for them.
