Dubs are getting better as ‘drive for five’ now seems unstoppable

Inside Track with John McIntyre

SO much for thinking that the Dublin footballers might be weighed down this summer by trying to do what no other team in the history of the GAA has done – winning a fifth consecutive All-Ireland senior title. If anything, they are being inspired by the team’s ‘drive for five’ as Jim Gavin’s squad continue to blow all challengers away.

The championship evidence so far in 2019 is undisputable – Dublin are getting better. Look at their result so far: they beat Louth 5-21 to 0-10; they beat Kildare 0-26 to 0-11; they beat Meath 1-17 to 0-4; they beat Cork 5-18 to 1-17; they beat Roscommon 2-26 to 0-14. It’s domination on an unprecedented scale.

Only Cork have really rattled their cage so far and the Rebels ended up being beaten by 13 points – the closest any team has got to the free-wheeling Dubs over the past couple of months. Their skill, power and conditioning are on a different level to every other county. They are the complete package, especially as the squad remains as driven as ever.

Who can stop them? On what we have seen so far, nobody. Kerry and Donegal look the best equipped to test the All-Ireland champions and the teams served up a cracking Super 8s contest at Croke Park last Sunday, but we are really clutching at straws. Unless the Dubs have an unexpected systems failure and a real off-day, they are certainties to be confirmed as the greatest Gaelic football team of all-time on the first Sunday of September.

Dublin are continuing to raise the bar. Take the case of Roscommon for instance. Last year, they were perceived as being too defensively naïve when losing by 4-26 to 2-16 to Stephen Cluxton and company. Twelve months later, the margin is pushed out to 18 points against a background where the Rossies were earning credit for being less exposed at the back.

The dismissal of Conor Daly near the break last Sunday obviously didn’t help Roscommon, but they were already haemorrhaging badly, trailing by 1-14 to 0-6 at the time. The Dubs got a bit sloppy for a period of the second-half before kicking on again towards their finish. It was classic men and against boys with the revitalised Michael Dara Macauley rattling home Dublin’s second goal.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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