Stephen Rochford: Kerry’s prolific Dylan Geaney yet another attacking problem for rivals Dublin

There was a remarkable stat doing the rounds last week about Dylan Geaney’s precision – and it has undoubtedly come across Ger Brennan’s desk ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final.

Geaney has kicked 20 points from 16 shots, with not a single wide or missed effort. When you factor in two-pointers, his 100 per cent conversion rate represents a 125 per cent return in productivity.

Broken down further by iGaelicCoach (Evan Talty), his stats are as follows: Three shots v Donegal, 0-3. Three shots v Kildare, 0-4. Four shots v Armagh, 0-5. Six shots v Tyrone, 0-8.

This matters. Because Geaney’s form represents a further Kerry attacking problem Dublin cannot afford to ignore this weekend.

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Indeed, Geaney’s precision is at a level I’m not sure I’ve come across from another player over the course of a championship campaign before.

In terms of match-ups, Dublin have more fires to extinguish than Kerry. You can imagine the conversations: “What are we thinking about a match-up on David Clifford? And what about Paudie Clifford? Wait, holy crap, now we have to think of a match-up on Dylan Geaney too.”

A natural byproduct of designating match-ups is that it creates space for somebody else in the Kerry attack to shine. And Kerry forwards tend not to need much encouragement to sparkle at this stage of the championship.

I would imagine Dublin will have two designated taggers this weekend – players who will be told to just focus on following one player, with the Clifford brothers the two Kerry selected for close attention.

But they’ll also have nominated man-markers, where a defender will be picking up Geaney but if he wanders out to the sideline, his marker will be expected to read where the biggest threat is coming from and adapt accordingly. The taggers will follow the Cliffords everywhere but the man-markers will be more fluid.

Because if you’re trying to stay compact, you really can’t carry three taggers. You need to maintain nine to 10 players to hold your team’s defensive shape. Once you start going above two taggers your shape can be easily manipulated and stretched and quality players in the opposition will hurt you big-time.

So, it’s a stick or twist decision for Dublin. They may feel because Geaney’s form is exceptional, they will tag him and David Clifford. But then Paudie has more scope and space to start pulling the strings. It’s a conundrum for Brennan.

One option is to try to release somebody from your half-forward line/midfield area to offer defensive support, as Mayo have done with Stephen Coen in games.

But in that scenario, you are accepting that a player from the Kerry half-back line is going to have more possession and will be breaking forward; is that the lesser of two evils?

A huge defensive responsibility for Dublin will be to get pressure on Kerry shots.

Because of Kerry’s ability to gain primary possession from long, medium and short kick-outs – they’re the best in the country at it – it’s inevitable that they are going to get shots off.

But you must not gift them easy shots. Dublin have to make sure Kerry are kicking under pressure. They also have to avoid conceding two-point frees – Dublin could live or die by those two mantras this weekend.

Wicklow’s Pádraig O’Toole comes up against Seán MacMahon of Dublin. There are fitness doubts about MacMahon for the game against Kerry. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho

Another concern for them is on the fitness of Seán MacMahon. Brennan says he hopes the Raheny man will be okay to play on Sunday but having gone off with a hamstring injury against Galway, it remains to be seen how fit MacMahon is for this fixture.

He is the obvious match-up with David Clifford, so if MacMahon wasn’t available, that would provide Dublin with a real test of their defensive personnel. They have already lost Nathan Doran with an Achilles problem while Eoin Murchan hasn’t seen action since the Wicklow game because of a hamstring injury.

If MacMahon plays, I’d expect Dublin to put Lee Gannon on Paudie but give him licence that when Dublin break, he breaks hard and breaks often, too. You might have Davy Byrne on Dylan Geaney and Theo Clancy maybe on Paul Geaney – with Dublin’s two younger lads, Charlie McMorrow and Eoin Kennedy, given a little bit more freedom to use their legs and get forward.

Kerry don’t need as many water buckets to put out Dublin fires.

Essentially, the questions they are mulling over are who is going to mark Con O’Callaghan and Niall Scully?

And then the challenge for Jack O’Connor and co is picking their own team. I understand Tom O’Sullivan played in their AvB game last weekend. Will Seán O’Shea come back in?

They are more straightforward dilemmas than involved in Dublin’s pre-game planning.

Dublin have had problems this year trying to get a settled defence, a defence that are comfortable with each other, a defence that have built relationships.

They lost Doran against Donegal. And if MacMahon doesn’t make it, what are the options? Because unless Murchan comes back in, it won’t be a seasoned defender.

Fully stocked, I think Dublin would be in with a really good chance of bringing this down the stretch.

Defensively, Kerry like to sit in and wait for the opposition to make a mistake and cough up possession. They then launch quick counterattacks because they have the forwards at the other end who can make turnovers count on the scoreboard.

But because Kerry sit deep, if you have a highly skilled team with good decision makers capable of bringing pace to the game and taking on their man, then you can hurt them.

If Con or Paddy Small or Colm Basquel take Kerry defenders on, because the Kingdom are sitting deep, Dublin can access the scoring zone. And one thing about Dublin over the last month is how they have grown in confidence in terms of two-pointers. They scored three against Donegal, four against Galway.

Tyrone also demonstrated another way of curbing Kerry – you’ve got to slow their attacks down to that methodical pace.

Armagh were able to do it for periods too, because when you slow Kerry down they have the same challenges as everybody else in those 11 v 11 situations.

Tyrone never allowed the quarter-final to get too stretched either, so I think you could see Dublin holding the ball for long passages on Sunday to keep it close entering the fourth quarter.

But to win out, ultimately Dublin will need to increase their efficiency rate (in the first half against Galway they had 18 shots with six wides) while also dealing with all Kerry will bring at the other end. That’s easier said than done.