TWO GAMES, TWO wins, and a combined margin of 46 points.
As far as Dublin are concerned it has been so far, so impressive.
But the accepted wisdom will tell you that Jim Gavin’s men haven’t faced a true test yet, the kind that will stand to benefit them when August turns to September and the business end of the championship hits its peak.
Longford and Kildare simply were not in their league, and Westmeath aren’t expected to fare much better when the sides meet in the Leinster final in Croke Park on Sunday.
It’s the tale of the princes and the paupers: Dublin closing in on their 10th provincial crown in the last 11 years, and their 54th overall; Westmeath, still basking in the glow of that historic first championship win over Meath, barely daring to dream of the shock of all shocks.
The bookmakers have made their minds up. Dublin are 1/500 to win which means if you put down €500, you’ll win the price of a Mars bar; 15 points is the expected margin.
“I suppose one of the things about a good team is to keep going until the end,” Kevin McManamon says ominously when asked Dublin’s relentless second-half performance against Kildare. After putting up 3-10 in the first half and racing into a 13-point lead, they kept the pedal to the metal and added another 2-8 after the break.
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“I suppose it would be stressed at times in the dressing-room but it wouldn’t be something that we’d be too obsessed with.
“But definitely, yeah, it’s a nice feature to have.”
McManamon is hoping to collect a fourth Leinster winner's medal on Sunday. Dáire Brennan / SPORTSFILE
Dáire Brennan / SPORTSFILE / SPORTSFILE
If Westmeath are hoping to catch Dublin with their eye off the ball though, they will be waiting in vain.
“I’d say we’re a long, long way from complete performances,” McManamon continues, pointing to lost kickouts and some less-than-fluid forward play as areas of improvement.
“I suppose a lot of things did go well for us but it could have been a different story if Kildare took more of their chances in the first half.
“It would have been a tighter game and that last goal before half-time really put the daylight between us. I would have felt they could have been a bit closer to us.
Look, there are a lot of standards we have that we didn’t achieve (in the semi-final) but at the end of the day we did perform in the upper echelons of our capabilities, so we were happy.
“But there’s still a few things that we’d like to improve on.”
If Dublin’s Leinster opponents have struggled so far to test their credentials, the players themselves are pushing each other.
The Dubs ‘A v B’ training games are notoriously intense and come with fewer risks, you’d expect, than a challenge match (defender Davey Byrne was hospitalised with facial injuries in a recent behind-closed-doors game against Armagh.)
“They’re always good games over the years,” McManamon says of the panel’s internal matches.
“The years that we’ve done well, we’ve always looked back on the practice games as where we got the intensity so that then in Croke Park for a championship game, it doesn’t seem like too much further to go. It’s not as big a leap in terms of intensity or attitude.”
That intensity is no surprise when you look at the Dubs’ squad list, brimming with even more talent than this time 12 months ago.
The competition for the 26 jerseys, not to mention the 15 starting places, is fierce and Gavin is sticking to his tried and tested policy of picking those who are putting their hands up in training when the cameras are off and the crowds are nowhere to be seen.
“I remember saying last year after the Leinster final, I’d a good game against Meath and I was saying there’s a chance I won’t play the quarter-final and people were laughing at me, but it’s true. You have to perform week in week out and I think that’s the only way to pick a team.
In fairness to Jim, he says at the start of the year that’s how I’m going to do it, that’s how I’m going to pick the team, on form, and he’s been consistent. I respect that, a lot of the players do.
“It kind of adds that bit of pressure to perform on a Sunday morning when no-one’s watching just as much as when there’s 40,000 or 50,000 people watching.”
'We're a long way from complete performances' - Dubs have bad news for the rest of the country
TWO GAMES, TWO wins, and a combined margin of 46 points.
As far as Dublin are concerned it has been so far, so impressive.
But the accepted wisdom will tell you that Jim Gavin’s men haven’t faced a true test yet, the kind that will stand to benefit them when August turns to September and the business end of the championship hits its peak.
Longford and Kildare simply were not in their league, and Westmeath aren’t expected to fare much better when the sides meet in the Leinster final in Croke Park on Sunday.
It’s the tale of the princes and the paupers: Dublin closing in on their 10th provincial crown in the last 11 years, and their 54th overall; Westmeath, still basking in the glow of that historic first championship win over Meath, barely daring to dream of the shock of all shocks.
The bookmakers have made their minds up. Dublin are 1/500 to win which means if you put down €500, you’ll win the price of a Mars bar; 15 points is the expected margin.
“I suppose one of the things about a good team is to keep going until the end,” Kevin McManamon says ominously when asked Dublin’s relentless second-half performance against Kildare. After putting up 3-10 in the first half and racing into a 13-point lead, they kept the pedal to the metal and added another 2-8 after the break.
“I suppose it would be stressed at times in the dressing-room but it wouldn’t be something that we’d be too obsessed with.
“But definitely, yeah, it’s a nice feature to have.”
If Westmeath are hoping to catch Dublin with their eye off the ball though, they will be waiting in vain.
“I’d say we’re a long, long way from complete performances,” McManamon continues, pointing to lost kickouts and some less-than-fluid forward play as areas of improvement.
“I suppose a lot of things did go well for us but it could have been a different story if Kildare took more of their chances in the first half.
“It would have been a tighter game and that last goal before half-time really put the daylight between us. I would have felt they could have been a bit closer to us.
“But there’s still a few things that we’d like to improve on.”
If Dublin’s Leinster opponents have struggled so far to test their credentials, the players themselves are pushing each other.
The Dubs ‘A v B’ training games are notoriously intense and come with fewer risks, you’d expect, than a challenge match (defender Davey Byrne was hospitalised with facial injuries in a recent behind-closed-doors game against Armagh.)
“They’re always good games over the years,” McManamon says of the panel’s internal matches.
“The years that we’ve done well, we’ve always looked back on the practice games as where we got the intensity so that then in Croke Park for a championship game, it doesn’t seem like too much further to go. It’s not as big a leap in terms of intensity or attitude.”
That intensity is no surprise when you look at the Dubs’ squad list, brimming with even more talent than this time 12 months ago.
The competition for the 26 jerseys, not to mention the 15 starting places, is fierce and Gavin is sticking to his tried and tested policy of picking those who are putting their hands up in training when the cameras are off and the crowds are nowhere to be seen.
“I remember saying last year after the Leinster final, I’d a good game against Meath and I was saying there’s a chance I won’t play the quarter-final and people were laughing at me, but it’s true. You have to perform week in week out and I think that’s the only way to pick a team.
“It kind of adds that bit of pressure to perform on a Sunday morning when no-one’s watching just as much as when there’s 40,000 or 50,000 people watching.”
‘He says it’s all in the mind’ – Westmeath’s Iron Man is making all the difference
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Leinster SFC Eyes on the Prize GAA GAA 2015 Kevin McManamon Dublin Westmeath