IT’S ALL-IRELAND final day in 2010 and the Dublin Ladies team bus is late. Manager Gerry McGill wants his team to be in Croke Park at least an hour ahead of the throw-in but their plan to depart from their base in the St Brigid’s GAA club has been scuppered by traffic.
It’s the kind of scenario that leaves McGill feeling anxious about the possibility of other things going wrong, but far removed from the panic engulfing the Donegal man are the players. The hurt from three All-Ireland final defeats has steeled them for this opportunity and the moderate inconvenience of a bus not turning up on time has no chance of distracting their focus.
While they wait for the bus, the team decamp to a nearby pub and get their pre-match routine underway. It may not be the location they had in mind, but their willingness to adapt to the situation and find solutions indicates that this is a team who want to be more than just contenders. McGill finds a spot to read the personal and team goals that each individual player has written on a piece of paper. He still has them today.
They eventually arrive in Croke Park with just 45 minutes to spare but the rush turns out to be the perfect build-up. By half-time, they’re nine points clear of Tyrone but Dublin have been here before. They had a one-point advantage over Cork at the same stage of the previous year’s decider but at the final whistle, they found themselves on the wrong side of a 0-11 to 1-09 scoreline.
They had their chances to steal the victory that day. Cork were hit with a sin-bin in the first half and two Sinead Aherne goalbound shots never reached the net.
But the 2010 final was going to be different and McGill knew it when Dublin stalwart Mary Nevin rose to speak in the dressing room at half-time.
“Mary Nevin set the tone for the second half and she did it with one sentence. It was very simple, she stood up and she said ‘Just before Gerry speaks, girls, I just want to say we’ve been here before, we’re here now again, but this time let’s turn the screw.’
“You could see there was no nervousness. She had been there against Mayo in 2003 and Galway in 2004 when Dublin were up at half-time. This time there was going to be no repeat of it.”
“It didn’t matter what I said after that. You can’t buy that type of stuff, it was great.”
Dublin went on to crucify Tyrone that day with an 16-point win that marked a complete departure from their second half implosions in 2003, 2004 and 2009. Dublin were All-Ireland Ladies football champions at last.
Elation and relief were the emotions of the moment but they took a bit longer to manifest in McGill. On his way over to the media room, the reality of their achievement finally registered and when he turned to captain Denise Masterson, he spoke about the ‘difference of twelve months.’ But he wasn’t just talking about the team’s change of fortune.
After the 2009 final, it was uncertain if McGill would even be managing the Dublin Ladies team again for the upcoming season.
“The 2009 All-Ireland final took an awful lot out of me,” he begins. “We were going in the right direction and I was fully convinced that we would beat Cork. I remember actually looking online at the odds for the final and we were 14/1 against Cork. We were rank outsiders and maybe rightly so because Cork had been so dominant.”
His return had the full support of the management but McGill wanted to get the input of his players. He met a selection of the more senior members of the Dublin squad to get a measure of how they were feeling before reconvening with the wider group.
Before any plans could be made for 2010, the pain of 2009 had to be confronted.
“When we decided to go back training, we met and we had to get closure as well. I think Denise Masterson and Mary Nevin summed it up at the meeting and they spoke about how difficult it was going to be to get back to that place again. They talked about the stumbling blocks we would meet but that we would remember what we agreed in this meeting.”
“The sad thing about that meeting was that there were players in that room and it was said that by the time it came to the end of the year, the same amount of people wouldn’t be sitting together.”
This wasn’t the first time that McGill found himself managing a Dublin team that was nursing wounds of All-Ireland heartbreak. When he first took the job ahead of the 2007 season, Dublin were harbouring the scars of two failed All-Ireland attempts and McGill misread the magnitude of the task in front of him.
“The only nervousness I ever had as Dublin manager was after my first year in charge. I got an awful amount of things wrong. 2007 wasn’t a good year and it was a steep learning curve for me. I thought I was coming into a ready-made confident team who had been to two All-Irelands a couple of years before that. I was very wrong and Dublin were a team that was very hurt and very bruised.”
Three years later, Dublin were willing to return to the well once more. They were relegated from Division 1 and yet, a review of the National League left them with a positive feeling about what the team could achieve. From that, a sense of conviction grew which ultimately delivered the county’s first senior All-Ireland title.
Their route to Croke Park featured Clare (quarter-final) and Laois (semi-final), but the one team who didn’t provide opposition along the way was the reigning champions Cork. Dublin had come up short against them the previous season but never got the chance to try again in the year of their eventual triumph. This can lead to misconceptions about the value of Dublin’s achievement but McGill says he will never endorse any such theory.
“All-Ireland titles are very simple. You either have the medal in your pocket or you don’t. If you ask any of the Cork girls who have 10 All-Ireland titles does it matter who they played and I don’t think they’ll tell you that one is any sweeter than the other.”
He adds that Tyrone were no token opposition for the Brendan Martin Cup that year. Their credentials for the final were earned on the back of wins over Cork in the quarter-final and Kerry in the next round after a replay.
“They beat two very well established teams. Tactically, we put a plan in place for Tyrone that day. Along with that, everything just fell right for us on the day and you had some very hungry players who were hurt from the previous year. Tyrone forwards, particularly that year, had terrorised a lot of defences. We knew Tyrone were going to be a good side.”
This weekend, a new Dublin team with their own baggage from All-Ireland finals will venture to the well again. Some of the class of 2010 are still playing for Dublin, still striving for that elusive second All-Ireland gong. And if Dublin are to break the cycle of disappointment against Cork, McGill advises that the first and last 10 minutes of the game are where they need to play with particular alertness.
“Cork can cause a lot of damage in those particular times. In that final 10 minutes, I certainly witnessed it in 2009, they know how to close out big games. They’ve done it so many times. The key thing is going to be that Dublin take their opportunities. The big players are going to have to perform. But I certainly think they will have the hunger but also, they have a better balance to their team this year.”
No further briefings about Cork will be needed on Sunday. They just have to rediscover a way to turn the screw.
– First published 08.00
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I’d like to thank the Ulster fans, who whilst no doubt disappointed to have no representation in the team, have behaved with perfect decorum and good grace. It’s awesome to see them row in behind Ireland as true fans rather than whinging on social media for days. There are some lessons in that for others
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@Daniel O’Keeffe: so we don’t need that rubbish song Irelands Call on Saturday so ??
@tom o neill: I’m not sure why you’re bringing anthems into this conversation, a topic that I personally feel Irish rugby should not touch with a barge pole. The Irish team proudly represents all traditions on our shared island of Ireland.
It’s a testament to the commitment and good character of Ulster fans, that despite Hendo and Stu both having strong claims to be in the 23, I have seen no outrage or claims of provincial bias.
Compare and contrast with the response of fans of another province because Frisch decided he wanted to nip home for a short visit.
@Daniel O’Keeffe: agreed, lots of talent that isnt getting its opportunity on the international stage due to poor provincial coaching
@Daniel O’Keeffe: any chance to take a dig :-)
@Mark Murphy: I posted back row my entire life. I might be in the worst 100 rugby players in the country, but POM and I have always agreed, if you can give someone a rib tickler at the bottom of a ruck them you take it.
@Daniel O’Keeffe: POM and yourself… You couldn’t have chosen a better role model, that’s for sure.
@Mark Murphy: both mediocre at best talents. I can only hope he follows my lead into retirement. He’s better at gardening than I am, but I’ve managed to convince Durex to start researching the Munster fanbase to inform their new extra extra sensitive condom range.
@Daniel O’Keeffe: while they’re at it perhaps they could come up with a prawn sandwich flavor prophylactic sheath for yourselves to enjoy?
@Mark Murphy: I’m not sure I need a flavoured prophylactic Mark, anything I put in my mouth, I’m very sure isn’t diseased. Maybe if you had hadn’t didn’t god knows how many generations at the auld inbreeding, ye could have the same confidence?
@Daniel O’Keeffe: you can never be too careful with that rent a fan crowd up there… Just saying… Safety first!
@Mark Murphy: right you are Mark. Nothing worse than seeing a back row giving away a penalty for dropping to his knees around the tackle. That Coombes is a right divil for it.
We may pick this up on Sunday, I need to give my full attention to the Scots ( and Saffa Scots) until then. There is one lad on twitter who keeps doubling or quits every time we play screaming “Finn is the best”. I’m afraid I might have Special Branch make a visit for exploiting a Scot of near human intelligence at times. Bis bald.
@Mark Murphy: ps that prawn cocktail riposte was top notch. I didn’t think you’d have as good a response to the durex dig as that. I reckon it’ll be a good URC and European Cup knockouts here in the comments section.
@Daniel O’Keeffe: haha!!
Harsh on Henderson, the line-out improved when he came on against England
@Noel Roe: Thought he might get a start alright.
@Noel Roe: Someone had to be dropped for the 5-3 bench and Baird is ahead at the moment in terms of impact
@Paul Ennis: as a 6, certainly. Baird as an international lock, however, is not something we know that much about. It seems clear that Leo Cullen sees him primarily as a 6 now (although that may be at least partly to do with Leinster’s pipeline in the respective positions)
@Noel Roe: Henderson should be starting if performance is meaningful. What does showing loyalty to players who don’t perform say to the wider squad?
hmmm whereas usually I do think there should be accountability for a poor performance, in this instance it’s the right call and expecting the pack in particular to bounce back this week. Let’s go Ireland. Side note, how on earth is Nash clear to play, surely that is dangerous.
@Carmine Lorenzo: balacoune should b in
@Gary Galligan: Nope Nash there on merit. And he’s obviously been medically cleared so that’s not an issue
@Gary Galligan: RB is not on form at the moment and hasn’t been playing for Ulster either.
@Carmine Lorenzo: astounded he’s included. Couldn’t move after the knock last week. Mad he’s somehow cleared to play again???
@Brenda Collins: yea. I am no medic but….
@Brenda Collins: Do you seriously not understand he has access to a full medical team? The players job is to play, the coaches job is to pick the strongest team available and the medical determine who is fit. With the wellbeing of the player the highest priority.
@Carmine Lorenzo: yeah agreed , no clue how Nash got cleared in this day and age
@Gary Galligan: no, he offers nothing in defence and drifts out of the game. He has gone backwards over the last 2 seasons
@bee bop: if the players well being is the highest priority then Nash would be stood down regardless of what the medics said. He was prone on the pitch, visibly distressed. The test they undergo are far from comprehensive. Sometimes coaches should just do the right thing and not use the cover of the medics.
@Gary Galligan: Methinks this is a tongue in cheek comment?
@Gary Galligan: He’s too old for the under 20s
@stu nolan: hahahaha “regardless of what the medics said”. Have fun collecting your Darwin award.
@Brenda Collins: Yeah it was an almighty whack. Freeman is one of those 100kg+ and over 6 foot wingers. I know medically he’s been cleared, but I think surely there must be a longer stand down if you fail a HIA. It just smacks of inconsistency seeing as Frawley also failed a HIA and he’s been stood down and gone back to Leinster. Regardless, I suppose we must have complete faith in the medical teams and trust them that they and the management have the player’s best welfare at heart. I predict Nash to get a brace of tries this weekend ;)
@stu nolan: unless you have a medical background and experience of Head and brain injury and assessment they I would imagine the experts who have passed Nash may just know a little more than you on this matter.
@Gary Galligan: against Duhan VDM?? No chance. Same reason Larmour was unlikely to be picked had Nash not made it – would probably have been Ringrose.
@chris mcdonnell: interestingly World Rugby’s own chief medical advisor resigned over the HIA and return to play protocols being farcical.
The Irish medical team are starting to develop a habit of leaving concussed players out there longer than they should be (e.g. Frawley at the weekend, Loughman previously against the Maori being a high profile one).
@chris mcdonnell: because a medical professional has never made a mistake before? More importantly, why take a risk? What’s there to lose giving the lad more time to recover from a knock that took him out of the game? The robustness of the HIA process is not exactly watertight, and is pretty arbitrary.
We could all see what happened to Nash, how he was after, how he was stopped from playing on. I can’t say I didn’t see the collision and aftermath, then shrug and say “but hey, the medics must be 100% certain he’s grand”.
You would hope th IRFU would be more enlightened on this.
@stu nolan: so we should discard medical experts and go by how it looked on TV
@Gary Galligan: are you having a laugh
Harsh on McCloskey
@Gary Galligan: if we started the full ulster 15 you’d say the next 8 would be on the bench.
@Gary Galligan: Yes but it would have been even harsher to leave Ringrose out
@Paul Ennis: Exactly. His flexibility to play wing is also a massive benefit. Probably the only reason we could’ve done with him over Henshaw last weekend.
Don’t know how O’Mahony is holding his place. Was anonymous last weekend and gave a brainless yellow card away for the second time in the campaign.
Baird makes that back row much quicker.
O’Mahony to do the last 20-25 minutes.
He will be subbed early anyway if he’s not yellow carded by then.
Frawley is hard done by.
Harry Byrne hasn’t really set the world on fire. I’ve been listening to people talk about Byrne and how high his potential is for the last 4 years but have yet to see him string a set of games that would give you encouragement.
@Jimmy Bean: the whole pack (and pretty much the whole team) were way off it last week not just O’Mahony. Also O’Mahonys yellow was a team yellow after an accumulation of penalties as far as I remember?
@James Donnelly: The yellow card was for cynically killing the ball on the ground on the first ruck directly after a line break to just outside our 22.
It’s not the decider between ether he should start or not, but let’s agree on common facts so we can have that debate in good faith.
@Jimmy Bean: How quick we are to jump on one poor performance and claim POM should be dropped. He will make up for it this weekend.
@Paul Ennis: he will definitely be well rested, so I expect a good performance from him.
@Jimmy Bean: I think AF’s management philosophy is built on trusting and empowering players. Part of that evidently involves allowing them a chance to redeem themselves after last week’s under-performance (let’s also remember that they lost by a single point; it was a bad day at the office but not a catastrophe). But I’d say AF has made it clear that a similar performance failure this week will not be tolerated.
In any case, I suspect after this 6N we’ll see some permanent departures (Healy, Murray, maybe POM)
@Jimmy Bean: If you read the article you’d see Frawley is not available. POM wasn’t alone in making little impact and if you picked a team based on that it’d be quite different.
@Paul Ennis: he’s usually ( and incorrectly ) thrown under the bus first if things don’t go right.
Very harsh on Henderson who was very good when he came on last week, one of rte few bright spots. We look very light at lock cover now, and lineout options late in the game
@Andrew Donohoe: I think the 2 penalties cost him.
@chris mcdonnell: and a poor carry into contact which allowed a turnover (albeit it was a poor pass to him in first instance)
@Andrew Donohoe: Baird and Conan in bette form for club and country.
@Andrew Donohoe: Would have preferred him to Conan.
As we were expecting. No drama. Just need to put Twickers in the rear view mirror. This may not be the starting XV v SA!
@John Morris: Hansen will b there no doubt huge miss
@John Morris: I’m pleasantly surprised by the rationality of these comments.
Great to see Harry Byrne in the squad. He is a very talented player who has had a fair amount of injuries. Hopefully he will see an injury free run of games and realise his true potential.
@Tom Reilly: I’d prefer Frawley as he covers more positions.
@TL55: I think there’s a philosophy question about what you want your replacements for; are they there to provide injury cover and insurance (which is an inherently defensive mindset), or are they there to give you offensive weapons that can make a game-changing impact? Last week we definitely went for the latter. I don’t think that was necessarily a mistaken decision, but as it played out a more defensive 5/3 would probably have won us the game.
@Brian Corcoran: English pack was on top.
@Ciaran Kennedy: agree – the English pack was undoubtedly dominant. But did our 6th forward (Baird) have any impact on the game? I’d argue not really. In retrospect, I don’t think having only 5 forwards would have materially weakened us.
Meanwhile, having only 2 backs definitely did. Losing Nash after 5 minutes meant we had to rearrange our backline, which significantly reduced our attacking & counter attacking threat. Once Frawley also got injured, we were into Plan C in the backs, which I think hampered both our attack and defence.
Glad to see a 5/3 split but it’s a pity we can’t make room for Henderson as he’s better second row cover than baird. Honestly I’m pretty disappointed Andy Farrell hasn’t tried to develop many new players this campaign, especially since he won’t be around next year during the lions. Hopefully Simon Easterby can still do a good job but it’s not ideal
@Rainbows In the Dark: you call for Henderson over baird but you are disappointed that farrell hasn’t tried to develop new players? Doesn’t really make sense
@chris mcdonnell: It makes perfect sense. Baird’s not an international second row and we need cover there. I’m not saying leave Baird out of the team, I’m saying to keep him as a backrow. And in regards to development I’m not talking about bench spots, I’m talking about starts for people like Baird and Ahern
How bad does POM need to play to lose his place. How many more yellow & red cards! He has been useless this campaign
@conor carroll: You obviously didn’t bother to watch the French game when he was outstanding and also good in the Wales game but le’ts just instead wildly overgeneralize ” useless in this campaign”
@conor carroll: who left the door open in your creche you tool
@John Ludgate: He was poor against Wales
@conor carroll: i think he’ll struggle to start in SA tour if his form continues but he has just enough in the bank and is AFs captain to get the start. He’s also a much better 6 than Darge and will get at that soft Scottish underbelly, against a fired up England with 3 second rows he was made redundant
5/3 better bench split. It was brave and daring by Andy to go 6/2, but English tackles made sure we were snookered. Once bitten………!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: More to do with the strength of the Scottish pack and replacements I’d say.
@Stanley Marsh: Scotland seem to be able to pull out the stops for the big games, so won’t be too bullish until the final whistle goes!
Lovely hurling
I’d like to see McCarthy and Beirne go the full 80 – Baid on for POM at 45 mins and Conan on for VDF or Doris at 55 (along with RK and FB and GR)
@Andrew Slazenger: beirne is can constantly ran out for 80 mins, if anything he could do with a break.
All the players from the other provinces are the reason we lost, they all should be dropped for players from my province
If Ringrose fit he should be starting ahead of Henshaw. Nothing against Henshaw, but Ringrose offers more in attack and defence
So no consequences for failing to perform?
Great message to the rest of the squad and those outside – doesn’t matter what you do or how badly those in front of you play, the team is fixed.
@teuO6nLS: sorry, not biting
@Arjuna: biting on what exactly? Poor performances should really have consequences or we’ll never build the necessary squad depth.
Compare to NZ and South Africa who drop players when they don’t perform rather than only waiting for injuries to give someone else a chance
Big opportunity for Harry Byrne , perhaps a last minute winning drop goal is on his cards ?
@Owen ODonoghue: no chance, he’ll be hiding away on the wing if we need someone to step up and get a drop goal
@Niall English: More bewildering guff. Back to your mother’s basement with you.
@Niall English: hahaha poor Harry! i’d rather have Sam P on the bench to honest
Suspect it will be a while before we see 6/2 again. Is Ross Byrne injured?
@Michael Murray: he just came back from injury he played a few games for leinster.
@Michael Murray: it wasnt the reason we lost. If Frawley was ok probably would have been used again
@Michael Murray: I would say if frawley was fit we would still go 6 -2 ,
@Michael Murray: Disagree. 6/2 is highly effective if utilised correctly (which it wasn’t last week) and if (crucially) you have a little bit of luck! The main reason we’ve never really used 6/2 before is because of questions over Sexton’s durability. Granted, he almost always lasted 80 but was a bit too risky to not have a sub fly-half.
@Michael Murray: 6/2 only makes sense when you have a coaching team willing to use the replacements early. Ours seem to be committed to no changes until after an hour at which point the advantage of the extra forward on the bench is gone