Dublin 1-22 Westmeath 0-9: The hope and assumption is Dublin will face at least one decent challenge to their Leinster football crown this summer, although for both obvious and ominous reasons this was not one of them. Roll on the semi-final against Kildare, back in Croke Park, at the tail end of the month.
Indeed the immediate aftermath here was less about the calm assurances of Dublin manager Jim Gavin that the end result didn’t reflect the “intensity” that Westmeath brought to the game, but the fact his counterpart Pat Flanagan begged to differ.
“We were just blown away by the sheer power, speed and strength of Dublin,” said Flanagan, with the look of a man drained of every ounce of strength, too.
“We’ve worked extremely hard in the league, expected to come up here and put in a far better performance. But it was a total eye opener for us. To me, looking from the sideline, Dublin were far superior in strength and power and pace. When you have all of those qualities, the football shines through.
“Our guys were trying their best out there, not of one of them faded away from the efforts, but being totally honest, we just weren’t able to live with Dublin.”
Genuine ambitions
Therein lies Flanagan's true woe. This 16-point defeat wasn't some productive mistake or simple underperformance. It was one small step in Dublin's defence of their Leinster football title, and one giant setback for the recent progress of Westmeath. They may have arrived with genuine ambitions of rattling Dublin's title hopes, but instead they could only look on as Dublin handed them another football lesson - not helped by their own suddenly strange inadequacies and minor case of stage fright.
Dublin hit the firm ground running and never let up, walking past their markers on several occasions as if they weren’t even there: leading 0-12 to 0-4 at the break, five of their six starting forwards scoring from play in the first 22 minutes alone, Paddy Andrews helping himself to three points, and Paul Flynn to two. They could and should have been out of sight by then, as Westmeath, looking terribly nervous, coughed up possession at a dangerous rate – and didn’t score themselves until 24 minutes, when Denis Glennon finally moved into some space.
Dublin increased the onslaught in the second half, Ciarán Kilkenny chipping into to ensure all six forwards scored from play: Bernard Brogan’s free-taking was spot on too, hitting five frees (and two from play), before retiring on the hour. Man of the evening Andrews then signed it all off with a brilliant goal, picking his spot in the top corner – and in front of the calmly satisfied Hill 16.
In the end then all that was left was another demonstration of Dublin’s awesome strength and depth: Jack McCaffrey, Darren Daly and Johnny Cooper defied their inexperience, Paul Mannion and Diarmuid Connolly both provided scores and acted as providers, and Dean Rock came off the bench again and hit 0-2.
Deprived of Dessie Dolan because of injury, Westmeath were hopelessly shy of any proper scoring threat. John Heslin’s confidence was struck early on when he missed his first two frees, and while he finished with five, at no stage did he stand up as expected to Michael Darragh Macauley and Cian O’Sullivan.
Downbeat
It's worth noting too that Gary Connaughton pulled off one excellent save from Mannion, and later Mark McCallon somehow cleared Connolly's shot of the line. In the end Dublin out-scored them 1-4 to nothing in the last 10 minutes, so no wonder Flanagan was so downbeat.
“I think the GAA need to seriously look at how it’s progressing,” he added. “There’s an awful lot of individuals putting in a serious amount of time and giving up a lot of their life. They need something different than coming up here as no-hopers. They need to be given an opportunity to progress. If you had a second championship, it would develop teams and give them a better opportunity of getting up to this level.
“We go into qualifiers and let’s be totally honest, the pressure is going to be on players to go back to clubs, the pressure is going to be on players to go to America. We need meaningful competition that’s going to give these guys an opportunity to progress. They deserve better. We don’t have the other resources that Dublin have up here. Most of those guys are living at home and only have to travel a couple of miles to training. In other counties they have to travel from Dublin, Galway, Cork or wherever. We need to seriously have a look at it. If we don’t Dublin, Kerry and all the rest are just going to sail ahead and the rest are just going to get weaker and weaker.”
A sorry note to end on.
DUBLIN: S Cluxton; D Daly, R O'Carroll, J Cooper; J McCarthy (0-1), G Brennan, J McCaffrey; MD Macauley, C O'Sullivan (0-1); P Flynn (0-3), C Kilkenny (0-1), D Connolly (0-3); P Mannion (0-1), P Andrews (1-3), B Brogan (0-7, five frees). Subs: K O'Brien for Daly (44 mins), N Devereux for McCarthy (48 mins), D Rock (0-2, one free) for Mannion (54 mins), D Bastick for Macauley (55 mins), C Costello for Brogan (61 mins). Yellow cards: Macauley (45 mins), Brennan (68 mins).
WESTMEATH: G Connaughton; M McCallon, K Gavin, K Maguire; D Harte, P Sharry, J Gaffey; D Duffy, J Heslin (0-5, all frees); K Martin (0-1), C McCormack, J Dolan; G Egan, D Glennon (0-2), C Curley. Subs: D Daly for Duffy, D Dolan for Harte, D Corroon (0-1) for Curey (all 48 mins); P Bannon for Egan (61 mins); A Purcell for McCallon (65 mins). Yellow cards: Heslin (34 mins)
Referee: Eddie Kinsella (Laois).
