Are Dublin the best team ever ?

[Zulu]

Right so you don't understand what we are talking about. We are discussing tactics, not the merits of who won, of course every team has to score more than their opponents to win a game but you can lose a game and still have employed effective tactics. Hope that clears it up for you.

[BluestackBoy]

That their basic tactical set up was fine.

Can't agree with that Zulu. When the attack started for Donegal's third goal Dublin had one defender inside their own 50'. When McFadden got the ball Donegal had 4 attackers against 3 Dublin defenders. Let nobody tell me that is sound tactics.

[BluestackBoy]

I don't know BC1, I think you're applying a standard to Dublin that if applied to any other county would come up with the same result but only with more manufactured footballers. I think Flynn is a magnificent footballer and athlete, like Brian Dooher was for example. I really don't know if you can say they can't think their way through games as they've won so many, including close ones or games where they've been well behind, that you can't pick out last Sunday and hold it up as an example of anything. Dublin should have come off the field with 1-20 at least which is phenomenal against Donegal. It's all opinions I suppose but I reckon Dublin have more natural footballers than anyone else at the moment.

Why should Dublin have scored 1-20?

They were put under pressure, crumbled & started missing chances they were scoring in their sleep all year.

All this talk about "natural footballers" is beside the point if you haven't the steel to hack it when the going gets tough.

[Zulu]

That their basic tactical set up was fine.

Can't agree with that Zulu. When the attack started for Donegal's third goal Dublin had one defender inside their own 50'. When McFadden got the ball Donegal had 4 attackers against 3 Dublin defenders. Let nobody tell me that is sound tactics.

But there isn't a tactical set up that covers everything all the time. I'm not arguing Dublin were perfect or that they were right to continue as they did but if they's taken one of their goal chances and a few of their easy chances in the second half then the game could have turned out differently and nobody would be talking about Dublin's tactics.

[Dinny Breen]

Is this not the whole nuture v nature arguement, to me what BC1 is saying is actually the nurture arguement and that Kerry/Kilkenny just have a better culture of nurturing footballers.

[Zulu]

Perhaps, but McCaffery, Brogan(s) and McCarthy are the sons of county footballers and have come through a quality coaching system. Without both I don't think they'd be the footballers that are and surely all counties have, or aspire to have, the same system?

[Dinny Breen]

It's the 10000 hours of practice arguement though, they were sons of footballers so all they wanted to do is kick football, so they practiced and practiced and if their parents were of a high level or coaches technique gets corrected early and qualities such as work-rate and commitment are instilled from a young age.

[Zulu]

But isn't that what happens in Kerry too?

[INDIANA]

That their basic tactical set up was fine.

Can't agree with that Zulu. When the attack started for Donegal's third goal Dublin had one defender inside their own 50'. When McFadden got the ball Donegal had 4 attackers against 3 Dublin defenders. Let nobody tell me that is sound tactics.

But there isn't a tactical set up that covers everything all the time. I'm not arguing Dublin were perfect or that they were right to continue as they did but if they's taken one of their goal chances and a few of their easy chances in the second half then the game could have turned out differently and nobody would be talking about Dublin's tactics.

Its a system that nobody else uses and hence why it has no longevity. Armagh's full forward line didn't go too badly against Donegal because they had a plan.

Dublin plan's was to kick long range scores - Donegal moved the cordon out and we never countered it. Or plan to get our inside line into the game was to make hare brained runs down the middle into contact or transfer the ball by hand 3 yards to a static forward who invariably had 4 players around him.

The reason we couldn't change it was because we were unprepared for it. Dublin management team have rightly gotten fulsome play for the last 18 months however last Sunday was  a  poor day at the office for them.

[Dinny Breen]

But isn't that what happens in Kerry too?

Of course it's nurture that's my belief, no such thing as a natural footballer/hurler, they are nurtured from a very young age.

A andecdote a heard recently was Mickey O'Connell use to practice for hours upon hours, who was the ball boy that use to work with him, Jack O'Shea, in turn when Jack practiced his ball boy was Maurice Fitzgerald and in turn when Maurice practiced his ball boy was Declan O'Sullivan.

[Syferus]

The question becomes who was Declan O'Sullivan's ball boy?

[Sidney]

Hilarious reading the Dubs posts here acting like young children. Trying their hardest to defend their millions spent by saying they started it first like a 5 year old.
I think counties have always tried to get an edge and that has gone from the Pat Spillane era of training with weights around their legs to the modern sports psychologists who think of everything from diet to who you react to conceding a goal.
I think we're now see it reach another level where counties are spending loads on training camps and all sorts of semi professional behaviour.
It certainly sounds like those with the most money or have a fat sugar daddy, sorry not you Rory McIlroy, are having some impact on their counties preparations.
I have to say I'm shocked to hear Donegal's use of Celtics facilities and just shows how the GAA world is changing.

We were talking about the whole way the game is going at the minute and the amount of money being spent on 'specialist' coaches etc to get the extra 'edge'.  We were talking about it at a club level but it also relates to county but the whole notion of 'greatness' is not created by what is done at the age of 18, 19, 20 or upwards but what is done at 8, 9 and 10.  The Kerrys, and Kilkennys of the game do not focus on the system or the cult of the manager or the super duper fitness coach.  They have an innate belief in each and every one of the players that pulls on the jersey.  As 8 and 9 year olds these now senior players are bred to believe that they are the greatest footballers or hurlers in the country,  whether they are or not.  The pure belief, that extra 10% that teams are paying sports psychologists a small fortune for is very hard to instill into someone who has never truly had that belief.  I see it at our club at all levels and it is the intangible 'x factor' that you cannot buy.  At county level I would classify Kerry in football, KK, Cork and Tipp in the hurling as teams that have this.  I would not put Dublin in that category as a county.  They have the old Jack swagger and all that but deep down there is always a nagging doubt about them, can they live with the hype? Can they cope with the pressure?  Many of the current team are 'manufactured' footballers,  built out of training grids and spreadsheets,  they are pure footballers.  They do not think on their feet and if plan A isn't working the players themselves don't know how to react as they have only been coached plan A.  That is partly a managerial fault but is also a systematic fault as the whole system has created automaton footballers.

Kerry couldn't deal with Donegal either (or Tyrone in the 2000s) and I'd hardly call them automaton footballers unable to think on their feet.

The simple fact is there really isn't any way you can deal with a 13 man defence. You can only beat it by a combination of sheer bloody mindedness and luck. With 17 scores (and it should have been a lot more) against it Dublin did a hell of a lot better than anybody else has managed against an on-form Donegal defence.

When a game plan succeeds a team and their coach are praised for sticking with what they believed in. When it fails the're pilloried for not changing it. If Dublin had put away even one of those goal chances and got an eight point lead Donegal would likely not have come back and we'd have been hearing all week about how McGuinness had failed to move with the times in terms of tactics. That would have been complete rubbish, and of course it's also rubbish to say Dublin footballers are automatons produced by spreadsheets, it's completely laughable.

Thats conplete rubbish Sidney. We were uncompletely unprepared for last week. Donegal have been beaten more then a few times in the last few years. But you need a plan and you need to be able to change things. We did neither last week

I didn't say Dublin weren't tactically naive, just that the notion they have automaton footballers produced by spreadsheets is utterly laughable.

[seafoid]

The question becomes who was Declan O'Sullivan's ball boy?

the sun god

[StephenC]

For want of a better place.

Hope Cooper lad is ok. 

http://balls.ie/gaa/dublin-gaa-star-injured-city-centre-stabbing-incident/

[seafoid]

For want of a better place.

Hope Cooper lad is ok. 

http://balls.ie/gaa/dublin-gaa-star-injured-city-centre-stabbing-incident/

That is shocking news. I hope he has a speedy recovery.