IN terms of recent Dublin football teams, the current version is not a side to be feared but at the same time one to be wary of. Cork will know this ahead of Saturday evening’s All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final at Croke Park (6.15pm).
For the first time in 15 years, the Dubs are not Leinster champions after Meath stopped their provincial dominance this season. The mighty Dubs even had a spell down in Division 2 alongside Cork in 2023, albeit they went on to win the All-Ireland that season.
In that year’s league game, Cork came so close to beating Dublin, only losing 0-18 to 2-10 in a game that ended with Brian Hurley being denied a goal by David O’Hanlon. The last championship meeting between Cork and Dublin in 2022 ended 0-21 to 0-10 in favour of the Dubs, however the Dublin players that were there then and missing now are eye-catching.
Michael Fitzsimons. Johnny Copper. Brian Fenton. Dean Rock. All four are gone. Add to that, James McCarthy and Jack McCaffrey are gone too. Fenton, in particular, is a huge loss at first for Dublin, especially in the Meath game where they were bossed in midfield. But as the championship has gone on, Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne and Killian McGinnis have stepped up big time.
Ó Cofaigh Byrne has played every minute of the championship and has stepped up with more game time while McGinnis has been a starter since he improved their midfield in the second half of their loss to Meath.
In the first half of the Meath match, Dublin retained just 32 percent of their own kickouts. When McGinnis came on, Dublin started winning primary possession, 78 percent of their own kickouts and 61 percent of Meath’s in the second half. Against Galway, McGinnis started and Dublin retained 70 percent of their restarts. That figure went up to 86 percent when they played Derry last weekend. McGinnis even chipped in with 0-3 from play last weekend, proving he is not only a big presence but can score too.
A large part of the kickout stats have been down to the returning goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton finding his feet with the new rules. It will be fascinating to see the battle between McGinnis-Ó Cofaigh Byrne against the Maguire-O’Callaghan-Walsh trio for Cork.
In terms of scoring, Con O’Callaghan is the clear danger man here. In the one game he didn’t play in the championship (against Armagh), Dublin looked devoid of ideas up front and that resulted in them having a measly 43 percent shot conversion.
When he has played, he has been to Dublin what David Clifford is to Kerry. 1-7 v Wicklow. 0-6 v Meath. 0-3 v Galway. 0-5 v Derry. 1-21 overall. 1-17 from play. He is Dublin’s top scorer in this year’s championship with Cormac Costello (2-16), Paddy Small (0-12) and Seán Bugler (0-10) weighing in behind. Worth noting, Bugler has 2-33 across league and championship and is one for Cork to watch when making runs.
All those aspects would signal that Dublin are a team that Cork might find a step too far. Having said that though, this is a team that has lost five times this year, beaten by Donegal, Armagh twice, Tyrone and Meath.
Cork have already put it up to a Kerry side that would have been considered All-Ireland favourites so why not the former kings of Leinster? The key thing for John Cleary’s side is to win midfield. Do that and they will go a long way to causing the shock of the round.
