Criticism passes and good work remains, as Monet once said about the great artists, and there's a similar sense about Dublin football now and especially coming from Cormac Costello.
Five weeks ago Dublin were a team in crisis, plenty of criticism around their own confidence, relegated from division one of the league, and then as if by magic they beat Wexford by 23 points on Saturday night and suddenly all the good work remains.
We look at each step as they come. The challenge now for us is in two weeks against Meath, that's where our focus is
Costello was one of nine Dublin scorers on the night, chipping in with two from play, and when he politely insists he wasn't listening to any criticism during the league that's partly because he missed most of it, sustaining a knee injury in the opening loss to Armagh at Croke Park.
“It’s the same to be honest, we wouldn’t be looking at it like that or listening to the noise,” he says of Dublin being written off. “We look at each step as they come. The challenge now for us is in two weeks against Meath, that’s where our focus is.
“You hear obviously a little bit, but I wasn’t looking into it too much. I think we tried something like maybe 50 different players during the league campaign, so there was a lot of squad rotation. A lot of lads were out with injuries; we were trying to try out new systems of play.
“Individual performances probably weren’t good enough and that consistency piece. We were more concerned about that, as opposed to looking outside and thinking of a crisis.
“You know, when you’re not winning games, you know when you’re not in a good position. Ultimately after we lost to Monaghan and were relegated we knew that this wasn’t our goal. But, look, we analysed the league and we looked at where we can do better. We know it’s a consistency piece, so we parked the league and all our focus is just on championship.”
Senior debut
At age 27, making his Dublin senior debut back in 2013, Costello has won it all: nine Leinster titles, seven All-Irelands, a minor and under-21 All-Ireland to boot. Last year's semi-final loss to Mayo was only his second ever senior defeat.
He has also started the last five championship matches for Dublin, and was surely in line to start last year’s final had Dublin made it. This means he has yet to start an All-Ireland final for Dublin, and if he insists too that is not what it is about there is a sense Costello wants to correct that.
You're sent on to do a job – you have to park your own individual goals for team goals at the end of the day
“You want to be playing; if you’re on the team you are pushing to start or play as long as you can, but at the same time I was under no illusions. I was in a very privileged position where there were lads not on the team or lads who weren’t coming on as a subs, so any time you get to play you are very thankful for. It’s something that it is what it is, and I’m thankful I got a few starts and we’ll see what happens over the summer.
“You’re sent on to do a job – you have to park your own individual goals for team goals at the end of the day. Whether I came on as a sub or didn’t come on at all or start the game, you are given a job, and you are trying to execute the game plan and the task you have been given. It’s something I just focus on. ‘Ok ay what am I being ask to do, and can I do it to the best of my ability’ and that’s what I’ll do.”
Speaking at an event of Dublin sponsors AIG to launch men's and women's golf cups and shields and men's and women's Irish Amateur Close Championships at Elm Park golf club in Dublin, Costello points to Dublin's restored consistency against Wexford as the most satisfying part of the night.
Campaign
“Last year it [lack of consistency] wasn’t just the Mayo game, you saw it there in the league, and our second-half performance against Meath last year, our Leinster campaign. I think throughout we weren’t good enough, we weren’t consistent enough, throughout the four quarters as it was, with the water breaks.
“And it was just the same again against Mayo, the same story. We weren’t consistent enough. We were a lot happier with the four quarters [against Wexford].
“Yes, there are lots of areas we need to improve that won’t be good enough in two weeks’ time. But I think in terms of consistency kicking 1-24, scoring in each quarter, was something we failed to do in the league this year.”
