EXPECT the unexpected might almost be Mayo’s mantra, but in a sense it’s also what you get from Dublin manager Jim Gavin.
No matter how hard the media work to get a line out of him he shuts it down just as his players shut down sights of goal for Tyrone. Even penalty-kicks get batted away.
Surely after this 12-point demolition, the biggest Championship defeat inflicted on Red Hands boss Mickey Harte, even Gavin would have to admit it had been ‘comfortable’?
Expect the unexpected with Jim. “I don’t think any time you play Tyrone it’s comfortable.”
Dublin only trailed for a couple of minutes, led all the way after netting their first goal in the fifth minute, and could have hit the net several more times.
If that’s not comfortable then the Dubs must be carried about in cotton wool when they’re not inflicting pain and humiliation on opponents.
This win took their average winning margin this summer down slightly, to just under 15 points. Mayo, in contrast, have had two games go to extra-time and two more go to replays, their All-Ireland quarter-final and semi-final, so Jim was invited to worry that Dublin’s route to the All-Ireland final hasn’t been tough enough.
No worries for Jim.
“We had a tough League campaign, the games we have played we have prepared really well. Those performances, the work is in the shadows of the games, and the guys have been really diligent, very focused and just keen to represent Dublin.”
Their early first goal, though, he’d definitely chime along with Tyrone boss Mickey Harte that it had been key to setting the tone of this one-sided match, making the opposition chase the game:
“Not from our perspective, really. It was an opportunity that we took. We got some more in the second half. We weren’t clinical enough with them and” – expect the unexpected alert – “the next day that won’t be good enough.”
Just when it seemed he wouldn’t agree with any proposition from the press, he concurred that final opponents Mayo are perhaps the toughest team Dublin could meet, given their unpredictability.
Expect the unexpected indeed.
“Yeah, any time we have played them there has always been a bounce of a ball between us. Absolutely.”
Yet that was about all he’d say about Mayo, saying nothing about their nine-match Championship saga: “I haven’t come across Mayo since March I think it was, National League game.
“We have been on our own journey, that’s where my focus has been on, that path that we are on. And the challenges Tyrone were going to bring for us, that’s where my focus has been over the last number of weeks.”
You’d accept the verdict of Mickey Harte that Dublin are getting better – wouldn’t you?
“We’ll look at that game there today, there are lots of positives but there will be lots of areas we know where we’ll have to improve upon.
“This time last year we turned up in an All-Ireland final, didn’t perform, and were fortunate to come away with a win. So all the work is with us now for the next day.
Not half as much as for the media, who, as ever, the media got as little joy out of the Dublin boss as Tyrone did from his team. It soon reverted to ‘expect the expected’, actually.
Someone gamely asked if the prospect of ‘three in-a-row’ would affect their approach to the final.
“Ah, I don’t think so. This team is too focused for that.”
And Gavin insisted it’s not hard to keep star names like Bernard Brogan and Michael Darragh Macauley happy, even though they didn’t get a minute’s play:
“No, they are a very focused group. They will naturally be disappointed, all the players that didn’t play today... some didn’t even travel on the team bus.
“But I know that when we meet up next week that they will be on script and they will do their very best for the team.
“That has been their influence among each other, to just keep pushing each other along.
“The team selection is outside of their control but they are all playing well, we have a fit and healthy squad and the next three weeks will be interesting.”
Let’s hope his definition of ‘interesting’ isn’t as strange as the way he views ‘comfortable’.
