Sport

Dubs have the power to end Fermanagh's summer in the sun

Fermanagh's Seán Quigley
Fermanagh's Seán Quigley Fermanagh's Seán Quigley

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship quarter-final: Dublin v Fermanagh (Sunday, Croke Park, 4pm, live on RTÉ2)

YOU know how this preview is going to end: ‘Fermanagh have done well to get here, but Sunday is a bridge too far.’

We all love an underdog, especially an Ulster underdog playing Dublin, but unless you’ve been living under a bucket on an island in the middle of Lough Erne, you’ll admit that Dublin surely have to win on Sunday.

Three questions:

  1. Will Fermanagh’s midfield compete with Dublin’s?
  2. Can the Erne forwards put a dent in the Dubs’ defence?
  3. Perhaps most crucially, can Fermanagh handle the Dublin attack?

The answers are yes (from their own kick-outs), no and no and we haven’t even got to Cluxton’s kick-outs and dead ball accuracy, Dublin’s experience, winning mentality, bench strength, scoring threat from defence, pace after turnovers, fitness or physicality yet.

Starting with the midfield battle, the good news for Fermanagh is that Eoin Donnelly is fit and will partner Enniskillen Gaels’ Richard O’Callaghan.

They are big men – two of the few capable of matching their opponents for physique - and they’ll win ball from the Fermanagh kick-outs (and, if the game goes to script, there could be a lot of them).

But Thomas Treacy kicks the ball out in the air so the Dublin centrefielders Michael Dara-Macauley and Brian Fenton will win their share. At the other end, Cluxton doesn’t kick the ball in the air down the middle – his restarts are all about pace and pin-point accuracy and the Parnell’s ’keeper has had success rates of up to 90 per cent in games.

When Fermanagh can get their hands on the ball they have two forwards who have shown this season that they are capable of racking up match-winning scores – Sean Quigley and Tomas Corrigan. Quigley has landed 2-28 including 14 points against Antrim in the Qualifiers, while Corrigan has totalled 1-16 including a man of the match 1-7 against Westmeath last Saturday.

Between them they have scored 3-44 out of Fermanagh’s 4-84 so their roles will be crucial but either will have had to operate against the pace and physicality of Dublin’s defenders. And then, if they get turned over, are they going to stop James McCarthy or Jack McCaffrey or Philly McMahon (who has scored in his last six games) breaking forward?

Dublin’s scores come from all over the field but the crux of the issue is how Fermanagh’s defence will handle their forwards and keep out the goals – the Dubs scored 11 in three games in Leinster.

Obviously there is serious firepower there and former Mayo manager James Horan identified Diarmuid Connolly as the best of the bunch. “Put a good man-marker on him,” said Horan, as if it was as simple as that.

Of course it isn’t, Fermanagh have fortified their defensive lines but struggled to replace the likes of Johnny Woods and Niall Bogue and the current squad isn’t blessed with man-marking specialists. Marty O’Brien and Ryan McCluskey will be handed the role tomorrow and they’ll try hard but Connolly will give either, or both, a lot of trouble.

And if Fermanagh keep Connolly quiet what about the Brogan brothers Bernard and Alan, Kevin McManaman, Ciaran Kilkenny, Paul Flynn, Dean Rock, Eoghan O’Gara etc, etc?

These counties have never met in the Championship previously and Dublin manager Jim Gavin admitted this week that he knew nothing of tomorrow’s opponents.

“Yeah, a lot of work was done over the last few days researching Fermanagh,” he said.

“They haven’t come across our radar before. We have been very impressed with what we have seen. [They’re] a team that has played with a lot of structure. They have Pete McGrath, a man that I would have huge admiration for with all he has achieved in football going back to Burren in the 1980s.

“He came across our paths in ’09 with the U21s. He had good success there with Down. Obviously his legacy is ’91 and ’94 with the Down senior football team, that breakthrough for Ulster teams and they have obviously blazed a trail ever since.

“They are very composed on the ball and they pick their moments to attack and they have been very fruitful in doing that. Their Division Three record and promotion speaks for itself and the way that they have dispatched Roscommon and Westmeath was quite impressive.”

McGrath’s side have beaten Antrim, Antrim (again), Roscommon and Westmeath to get to this stage and while Fermanagh haven’t met the Dubs before, McGrath has with Down and he saw them off.

He is back on the biggest stage and for McGrath there is nothing like the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

While the calls for a second tier competition are understandable a ‘B’ final - the Paidi O Se Trophy or whatever the new competition is called - between, say Fermanagh and Laois, would attract maybe 20,000 fans. Maybe.

OK, a trophy is up for grabs but it’s not the Sam Maguire. Would winning it really mean more than playing the Dubs on an August Sunday in Croke Park?

For some it might – after all there would be a medal to show the grandchildren, but tomorrow is the majors. The scene will be set by Kerry and Kildare and then the Ernemen will share the stage with the Dubs in what could well be the most memorable experience of their careers and, while they go in as the rankest of underdogs, they can dare to dream.

Of course Fermanagh shocked us all in 2004 when they reached the All-Ireland semi-finals. If the Dubs are complacent and things go wrong for them and right for the Ernemen we could be celebrating a ‘Davo’ versus Goliath upset.

But away from the what-ifs, this game is all about whether the Ernemen can contain Dublin and put scores on the board at the other end and that’s just too much to expect. Fermanagh will adopt a safety-first approach tomorrow and try to keep the goals out and emerge with their dignity intact, but Gavin’s side should win this with a lot to spare.

Fermanagh have done well to get here, but Sunday is a bridge too far.

Fermanagh: T Treacy; M Jones, M O’Brien, N Cassidy; D McCusker, R McCluskey, J McMahon; E Donnelly, R O’Callaghan; B Mulrone, R Jones, R Corrigan; P McCusker, S Quigley, T Corrigan.


Dublin: S Cluxton; J Cooper, R O'Carroll, P McMahon; J McCarthy, C O'Sullivan, J McCaffrey; B Fenton, MD McAuley; P Flynn, C Kilkenny, D Connolly; D Rock, K McManamon, B Brogan.