DUBLIN legend Paul Clarke reckons Fermanagh will try to frustrate the All-Ireland title favourites with a green wall at Croke Park.
Ulster outfit Fermanagh are surprise quarter-finalists and Clarke believes they’ll defend in numbers to avoid a trouncing from the gung-ho Dubs. Westmeath adopted a similar gameplan in the Leinster final and it worked for nearly 40 minutes, while Fermanagh’s provincial neighbours Donegal, Derry and Tyrone have frustrated Dublin too.
Clarke said the choice the Erne men have is to hit Dublin with everything and be heavily beaten or defend in numbers and potentially claim a creditable defeat.
“It’s more likely the latter that’s going to happen,” said Clarke.
“They’ll hope then to counter-attack quickly and use the energy and the buzz that’s still there from reaching this stage to keep themselves at a high level of intensity. If they do that, get off to a nice start and put a few points on the board, you could have a close game up to half-time.
“After that, I’d expect the superior fitness of Dublin and the quality of their substitutes coming in to have a big effect. But that is how I see Fermanagh approaching the game. They could come up and play their own game and walk off saying, ‘at least we did it our way’. But Jack Sheedy said that when he came up with Longford, played his way and got trounced.
“Fermanagh have the choice to play their own way and suffer the consequences, get exposed in the full-back line and, potentially, take a pasting or shut up shop and be remembered as the team that frustrated Dublin. As I said, I think they’ll take the second option.”
Dublin are consistently meeting teams armed with crude stifling tactics in big Croke Park games. All-Ireland medallist Clarke rejected the notion that Jim Gavin and his panel may be growing frustrated with the suffocating systems. Rather, he reckons they’ll realise that the cream will inevitably rise to the top regardless of the tactics employed.
“That little bit of special stuff is still going to be the difference in the big games, that bit of brilliance or class,” said the ex-Dubs selector.
“If you have Jack McCaffrey or Michael Darragh Macauley bursting off the shoulder at pace and taking a ball on, there’s not many systems that are going to be able to deal with that.
“At the end of the day, there’s enough class in that Dublin team to overcome whatever is thrown at them.”
Clarke, currently in charge of top Meath side Donaghmore-Ashbourne, believes Dublin are committed to regaining the All-Ireland in style.
“Jim Gavin would admit that the style of football he’s playing is a bit of what we were doing in the 1990s and a lot of what was happening in the ‘70s,” said Clarke.
“It’s a Dublin thing, what’s comfortable for Dublin and he doesn’t care what Ulster teams are doing or any other teams. Pat O’Neill would have been similar in 1995 when we won the All-Ireland, we were trying to replicate what Dublin teams did in the ‘70s.
“It all comes down to what you’re comfortable with. I’m a coach myself and I understand defensive systems but not fully, so I don’t line teams out that way. I understand a different way of playing football, so you stick to your principles and that’s what Dublin are doing.”
