HAS there ever been a more influential substitute than Kevin McManamon?
Should Dublin go on and win the Sam Maguire – and I think they will – then once again they will look to the heroics of their supersub.
There is much made of the strength-in-depth of the Dublin panel, and in particular the quality of forwards that they can introduce to swing a game in their favour. But when you look back at the key moments of the 2011 semi-final against Donegal, the subsequent final against Kerry, the 2013 semi-final against the Kingdom and Saturday night’s semi-final replay win over Mayo, McManamon has been head and shoulders above the rest when the chips were down.
Against Donegal, his running succeeded in breaking down a defensive wall that had confounded his team-mates, while in the other three matches he found the net.
Mayo will be kicking themselves that they took the foot off the gas when they went four points up but, across both games, the Dublin forward line asked far more questions of their opponents. McManamon, Ciarán Kilkenny, Bernard Brogan and Paddy Andrews scored 2-16 from play between them across the two games. In comparison, the entire Mayo team managed just 1-13. When you sit back and analyse the purple patches both teams enjoyed, Dublin had the quality to be much more ruthless on the scoreboard. Between the 54th and 64th minutes on Saturday, they scored 2-3 without reply to go from four down to five up.
I understood why the Mayo management made the decision to start Barry Moran this week, but I was very surprised how he was utilised.
Playing a lone sweeper against Dublin is a bit like one man trying to swat half-a-dozen flies at the same time. You may manage to take one out but there’s another five moving in different directions to punish you.
This gave Dublin more time on the ball around the middle to pick the right pass and you could see Paul Flynn once again hitting the diagonal ball to the full-forward line without any pressure being put on him.
It certainly played into the hands of Kilkenny and Andrews in particular, who managed to hit four from play in the first half partly because Mayo were more worried by the likes of Bernard Brogan.
What was even more peculiar was the continuation of the misdirected long balls into Aidan O’Shea. Mayo played a terrific running game in the first half and when they played percentage football they were electric. Had they played Aidan O’Shea at centre half-forward and resisted the hit-and-hopes, they would have been three or four ahead at half-time.
Dublin deployed a very risky strategy themselves in the first half that can go some way to explaining why they conceded 10 points in the opening 35 minutes.
When Mayo broke with the ball they pressed them high up the pitch.
The problem for the Dubs was that the turnovers didn’t come due to the pace their opponents broke at. This left more gaps up the pitch for the Mayo men to run into and Dublin then lacked a strong defensive shape to deal with this.
Stephen Cluxton took a lot of flak last week for not handling the pressure well in the last 10 minutes of the game. But on Saturday he was back to his brilliant best. In the first half he kicked with precision and in total Dublin got six points that came directly from his quick restarts.
Some might argue that Philly McMahon was lucky to be playing on Saturday but what you couldn’t dispute is that across the two games he was Dublin’s most valuable player. Not only did he restrict Aidan O’Shea to a single point from play and produce a much more disciplined performance, but he grasped the opportunity to create a scoring forward’s worst nightmare.
A goal and two points was some return. Mayo, to their cost, tried to do with O’Shea what Donegal do so well with Michael Murphy. But when O’Shea worked back for the team it invited a very clever McMahon to ghost unmarked into scoring positions.
Séamus O’Shea’s 40th minute black card was a massive blow to Mayo as he was having a super game.
Bernard Brogan’s goal was a moment of serious opportunism that also swung the momentum Dublin’s way. However, the chance Lee Keegan spurned to put Mayo five up was a terrible miss that will be looked back on as the turning point of the game.
But the swing in momentum was less about any one key moment and more about the quality Dublin could call upon to change a game. Even with Diarmuid Connolly and Paul Flynn extremely quiet, Bernard Brogan, Kilkenny and the impressive Andrews stepped up. But the introduction of Michael Dara Macauley, Alan Brogan and that man McManamon gave new energy to Dublin and new problems that Mayo couldn’t provide answers to.
Once again Mayo played their part in a stunning sequel that more than lived up to the original billing. But, not for the first time, it was more of a supporting role, and once again the men from the west acted out the part of the gallant loser. 64 years and counting.
