Like everyone else I watched Dessie Farrell last Sunday looking uncomfortable answering awkward questions on the television in relation to Stephen Cluxton's position.
Is he gone? My sense is that he won’t be back so why then the ambiguity? Is there more to this saga than meets the eye? Is part of the strategy to deny oxygen to rival teams because the psychological effect of his absence will be huge for the 2021 championship?
Dublin have been carrying this ‘invincible’ tag for a number of years now and Cluxton has been a huge part of that tag.
That will be eroded and this will affect Dublin but factor in the impact on everyone else. Everyone else is going to see a chink of light.
On the pitch he was a pioneer. He changed the face of the game for his position on the field
I think he’s protecting the aura because people don’t know. The biggest thing in sport that people want is clarity. If you have that, you can prepare with conviction. Regardless of whether he’s here or not, his departure isn’t yet official.
People say that it’s not fair on Dessie Farrell.
I think that's a wrong read. Dessie may well have known eight weeks ago that Stephen Cluxton isn't coming back and so could the players. They all know that and are planning for that. No-one else is. So what if Dessie knows? Well, Peter Keane doesn't.
On the pitch he was a pioneer. He changed the face of the game for his position on the field. He devised innovative strategies - genuinely unseen up until he had arrived. He was the first goalkeeper to be his team’s number one free taker and won an All-Ireland with his accuracy.
Take that one role, which ironically he doesn't even fulfil for Dublin anymore. That has had a major influence on the game. Look at Rory Beggan, Niall Morgan and many others. Then there was the plus-one - how he acted as an extra defender, coming out with the ball just as other teams were becoming more tactically savvy at pushing up and forcing errors.
With the high press he became the extra player in those circumstances and performed that role really effectively, intelligently and - most importantly - safely. Compare with 15 years or so previously whenever a ‘keeper came out with the ball over the 14-yard line, hearts were in mouths!
The range of his re-starts was astonishing: exceptional skill, underpinned by equally exceptional judgement of when to employ each of them.
He always took the short if it was on because it’s 100 per cent possession and they had brilliant footballers who didn’t give it away and thus could make it count. Then came the mediums, the 30 to 50 metre clip and all the movement patterns off them.
Lastly when other teams were more aggressive, that forced him to go long and in many ways that was Dublin’s best option and that’s where a lot of their goals came from because they’re bypassing the pressure, like for Jack McCaffrey’s goal in the drawn final against Kerry two years ago.
He was able to retain possession even through going long over the press, leaving Dublin to attack three opponents instead of seven or eight. For me that was the opportunity he was always waiting for.
He wasn’t simply deciding what to do but deciding what the opposition wanted to do. That ability to survey the landscape and more or less say, ‘show me what you want to do and I’ll hurt you anyway’.
Legacy
This has left a massive legacy. Goalkeepers are now almost the biggest influences on a team. Counties with the best ‘keepers have the best chance of winning the All-Ireland and the new generation have the same sort of accuracy with the ball, short, medium or long and really fancy themselves coming out with the ball: not exclusively shot stoppers but also critically, who can give you a platform.
When I think about Stephen Cluxton, I also think about when the team wasn’t hugely successful, essentially the first half of his career. We all know what they are now and the scale of their achievements but it wasn’t always like that and he has been central in shaping what they are today.
Back then there was the flash of Celtic Tiger bling about Dublin: the big crowds, the way they carried themselves and the hard luck stories. Cluxton shifted that dynamic even on a personal level with his ‘man of mystery’ projection, the absence of any media engagement - no words, just deeds and all the while moving the needle on the way we understood the goalkeeping role.
There’s more to him than the public persona. He’s a fiery kind of character as you find out if you touch that ball once he puts it down. He’s doing his thing - don’t get in the way. He’s deadpan - and must be the only captain in history not to smile when being presented with the Sam Maguire. That’s fine! That’s who he is.
Psychologically, he lifted his team. They knew the numbers he brings; no team knows their numbers like the Dubs. The match before they played us in 2014, the shots they had got off against Monaghan were in the high 40s. How do you even do that? He provided the platform.
There is no 50-50 in this. Back in the day against Kerry or Meath, the ball was kicked out and it was a battle in midfield and in those moments heroes were made. Those moments don’t exist anymore. He eliminated them and put all those moments in the one basket.
Previously you planned for a team. Now you had to prepare a plan for the goalkeeper as well as the Dublin team. To have any chance of winning the game that was the conundrum you had to solve first.
I also give him huge credit for the way that he kept improving his game and developing as his career progressed. He drilled down really deeply to create a process-driven approach rather than simply a tactical plan for a specific match.
Process is being able to read what the opposition does and deal with it. You shut this down and I go here; shut that and I go there, which creates relentless challenge.
Look at Kerry and where they are at the moment and all the pieces look to be in place for them to win the All-Ireland. Their kick-out strategy for me however is based on a plan for a day and not deep process. Could this one variable be the difference in where the Sam Maguire rests this autumn? Time will tell.
