Ban fear for Connolly as Carlow take heart
IT hasn’t taken long for disciplinary issues to bubble to the surface in the Championship — and guesswho’s involved again? That man Diarmuid Connolly.
It’s unusual that both Dublin and Carlow came away from O’Moore Park reasonably happy on Saturday evening.
Dublin got the result they wanted while Carlow will be buoyed by their display, even if they lost by 12 points.
They didn’t allow Dublin to run riot and they kept the ball out of their net.
But when we sum it all up, it’s disciplinary matters that will generate headlines in the coming days.
Once again, Connolly allowed himself to be sucked in. Managing Connolly is one of Jim Gavin’s biggest challenges but now he has to wait and see if his player is facing a long suspension for the incident with linesman Ciaran Branagan.
Connolly had two black cards in the League and now we have this latest episode.
We all know that he’s a marked man but it’s something that he hasn’t fully come to terms with. Once again, he’s walked into a trap.
In his defence, Connolly is obviously a player who can destroy opposition teams with his skills and talent, often in a seconds, but this keeps happening.
He simply hasn’t come up with a strategy to deal with the heat that comes his way.
The incident itself occurred on the sideline, an intense situation with the crowd close by.
Carlow would have discussed Connolly many times during their pre-game planning.
Connolly should have known what was coming, and dealt with in a different way.
On the game itself, Carlow were playing for a performance, and to keep it as tight as possible.
You never felt at any stage that they had a chance of winning it but I still felt the manner in which they applied themselves was heroic — Seán Murphy in particular, but his midfield partner, Brendan Murphy, didn’t cover himself in glory when he was sent off.
There were only four points between the sides when he tangled with Jonny Cooper off the ball.
While Dublin will plead leniency for Connolly, they’ll know that Cooper is the man who dishes out that type of treatment to opposition players.
I got the impression, from looking at the incident, that Murphy was trying to resist Cooper’s attentions as he looked to run by him.
He gave a quick glance towards the referee to see if he was looking but forgot about linesman Brannigan, who alerted referee Sean Hurson to the incident.
Murphy has form too, in this regard. Last year, he was suspended for an All-Ireland qualifier against Cavan after accumulating too many cards.
Instead, Seán Murphy illustrated how you can play a tough, physical game. He didn’t shirk a tackle and what I’ve noticed is that the disciplinary issues seem to arise from almost handbags stuff, rather than physical, manly contests.
Murphy was a deserving manof-the-match, he was superb. That tracking back to deny Dean Rock early in the second half summed up his performance and he also kicked a brilliant point.
It really does go to show that no matter what side of a border you’re from, there’s great footballers in every county. Unfortu- nately, there’s not enough in all of them but Carlow have a real gem here.
Overall, Dublin’s performance was very rusty. They’ll be disappointed with it but Gavin and his men won’t be aiming to peak at this stage of the year.
He’s experimenting with his team, and handed senior Championship debuts to Niall Scully and Con O’Callaghan.
It’s disappointing that they didn’t open Carlow up for goal chances but you can understand why Turlough O’Brien set his team up the way he did. Carlow did score 2-17 against Wexford but Dublin are a different animal. It’s a pity we didn’t see Carlow being a bit more expressive, though, because they have other fine players in men like Paul Broderick and Darragh Foley. In this structure, however, they weren’t able to showcase their skills to the best of their ability.
They often pulled 13 or 14 men behind the ball and realised that if they played an open and attacking game, they’d be torn apart.
Carlow head for the qualifiers now in good fettle and I’d expect them to throw the shackles off again.
If they could get a reasonable draw, the possibility is there to win a game or two, and that would be fantastic for them.
It would mean they’ve four games in the Championship and that’s the thing that crucifies the weaker teams, when they might only get two matches in a season. You’re trying to develop but you’re gone out of the Championship early. It’s why the strong are getting stronger and the weak getting weaker but Carlow’s template allowed them to be competitive against the champions.