Leinster SFC Quarter-final replay: Tom Humphriessuggests that Dublin free-takers, more so than other counties, take much of the blame for any defeat.

If you were Mossy Quinn you would feel entitled to a little bemusement. The day Dublin won the Leinster title in 2005 he played one of his more ordinary games in the sky blue jersey of Dublin but in the final minutes was called upon to kick two dead balls, a free from 43 metres and a 45. Mossy slotted both. Dublin won by a point. Nobody noticed the prosaic nature of his contribution from play. The boy had done well.

Ross Munnelly, on the other hand, kicked a 43-metre free wide in the 73rd minute of the game. There was no subsequent inquiry into the Laois place-kicking crisis.

"The day you win is a good day for a free taker," says Barney Rock, who knew many such days as a place-kicker through the 1980s and applied the coup de grâce to his career in the second of the Meath-Dublin series in 1991. "You win your match and miss two or three frees and nobody will pass a word on it. When you lose and miss the same frees it's a bad day."

Last day out in Croke Park was a bad day for Mossy Quinn. At least it was perceived as such. Playing his first championship match of the season and oddly his first game in Croke Park in the rain, he kicked the first two dead balls and then missed the next four. On another day with a bit of luck he could have ended up with 2-2 or 2-3 in brackets after his name. Dublin and Meath drew but the percentage of kicks which Quinn landed was placed under the microscope not just by the result but by the emergence in the second half of Meath substitute Cian Ward, who kicked five out of five dead balls with a style and assurance rare in modern day free-taking.

This morning the city hums with the intelligence that Dublin may switch free-takers for tomorrow.

There are few jobs in Irish sport which come under such intense scrutiny as being the free-taker for the Dublin senior footballers. Part of the difficulty is historical. From Kevin Heffernan in the 1950s and early 1960s to Jimmy Keaveney through the 1960s and 1970s, to Barney Rock in the 1980s and Charlie Redmond in the 1990s, Dublin teams have been blessed with a string of sublime free-taking talents whose legacy is hard to forget and harder to live with.

The players who have been entrusted with the job of free-taking since then have lived not just in the shadows of the greats but in an era when free-taking has changed both as an art and as an area of emphasis in football generally. Everywhere that is, except in Dublin on a bad day.

"There is overemphasis on Dublin free-taking," says Declan Darcy, who took over the task when Redmond retired. "No denying it. You'll never get back to the days of Charlie and Barney etc. They were fantastic. Statistically, the Dublin thing is harshly judged. The last day against Meath Mossy had a slightly off day. Generally speaking, he does well. If you take the average off other counties who would be pushing for an All-Ireland and compare the stats I don't think there is very much difference. Because of the past history there is over-emphasis on anything missed. It is a pressure. When it goes against you there is a momentum there swinging against you."

Wayne McCarthy had the guts of a championship season on free-taking duty back in 2001.

Having worked with Redmond all through his teenage years, McCarthy was an outstanding minor. The step up was massive.

"The pressure is immense. The only way to get used to it is to play in it for a long time. In my first year I was average enough; with frees as a minor I kicked between 70 and 80 per cent.

"The next year with the bit of experience I was almost 100 per cent. You have to be exposed to it more often. Starting with Dublin, I only got the one year but you kick better the more exposure you get. It is very daunting though, especially in Croke Park."

None of which is to state that free-taking hasn't cost Dublin games over the past few years. Just to note that somehow Quinn seems to carry the can for the bad days and not the good.

Earlier this year when Dublin lost to Tyrone by a point in Croke Park (another lead blown) Quinn wasn't playing. Nor was he on the field at the death last year when the All-Ireland semi-final was lost to Mayo. Quinn, despite being instrumental in setting up Dublin's goal and having kicked a '45 earlier in the game, was on the bench when Mark Vaughan hit the '45 at the death which dropped just short.

A year previously, as Quinn might note to himself, he had won the Leinster final with two pressure kicks. Free-takers have their own standards though. Quinn would tell himself too that his statistical return against Meath fell below his own standards but free-taking is about getting back up on the horse that threw you.

Yet if the smart money is to be followed Quinn will play in Croke Park tomorrow but the free-taking duty will fall to Vaughan.

Vaughan is a considerable but mercurial talent whose kicking blows hot and cold with his game.

Quinn can feel hard done by and can feel that yet again his confidence is being undermined from within.

"Mossy has the ability," says Darcy. "Two years ago against Laois he nailed the critical frees. I think that Mossy is a good free-taker and has a nice style. He took his eye of the ball a little the last day but people should get behind him. I think he won't be taking the frees this weekend and that will rock his season a little bit.

"Mark Vaughan will probably take the frees. Mark is a volatile type of character. My view would be to concentrate on Mossy. He has the ability. It cost Dublin last year with Mossy not on the field to kick the frees."

"There's a view in Dublin," says McCarthy, "that you didn't do it, goodbye and good luck, sonny. Mossy has to be stuck with. He has delivered before. He has kicked well. Everyone is entitled to miss a few. He hadn't a great day? So what? I worked with Charlie and I know it took him a few years to become the kicker he was.

"When Charlie started off he wasn't as good in the initial years as he ended up. His initial few years until he developed his own style and got comfortable with everything, he went from being good to being great.

"Trevor Giles in his first year struggled but they stuck with Trevor in Meath. In Dublin the expectation is too much. For a young lad fresh off the press it's hard to compare. The three lads were exceptions. Can you name another county that had three free-takers in succession like Jimmy, Barney and Charlie?"

Darcy and McCarthy speak from experience, bitter and sweet. As Dublin's best recognised free-taker between the end of the Redmond era and the beginning of Quinn's tenure, Darcy was on the field right at the end for Dublin's most heartbreaking failure of recent years, the 2002 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Armagh. Dublin had a free to tie the game. Ray Cosgrove kicked it from his hands and it brushed off the post on its way wide.

"My gut feeling was that I would have kicked it," he says, "but Ray had won the free and he was on fire that day. He won the free, got the ball and took it himself. For me to run over to him, to take the ball, wrestle it off him even though he was on fire, I don't know. If management had insisted I take it I would have taken it. I would have made myself out to be the Roy of the Rovers if I had taken the ball off Ray though! It didn't register with me then. Hindsight is wonderful. If I go back I would have preferred to take it. All day that was the only thing he did wrong and how wrong was he? Just the width of a post."

A year previously, McCarthy was thrust into the Leinster final as a lean 19-year-old. He missed his first kick, a 30-yarder, and kicked three points after that, a 50 percent success rate.

Dublin lost by three points. In the All-Ireland quarter-final in Thurles against Kerry, Maurice Fitzgerald equalised for Kerry late on and McCarthy missed a '45 to win the game with the last kick. He didn't start the replay.

Tommy Lyons came in the following year and within six weeks McCarthy was dropped from the panel.

"I was there for a short while with Tommy Lyons. He had David Aldred in to coach the kickers.

"All due respect to him but it's a different shaped ball for a start. A different strike. He was there for two days. As regards our sport I actually found it a hindrance. You had your own style. You needed to work on that. What struck me was that we have Jimmy, Barney and Charlie in the county. Why not bring them in once a week or so over a season or two? Three masters at Gaelic football free-taking in Dublin."

Quinn, a hurler by inclination and breeding, came to serious football late but made huge steps quickly, including a memorable 4-5 scored once for DCU in Sigerson football. He made his big time debut the next time Dublin and Armagh met, which was the opening round of the 2003 league, a game played in front of 54,000 people in Croke Park. He is the only survivor of the full-forward line that day (Eoin Bennis and Johnny McNally were the other two inside men). Since then, despite his creativity and goal-scoring talents, Quinn has been asked to carry the can for many Dublin failures and could if he had the mind claim to have been the victim of some harsh selection decisions which would jangle the confidence of any player.

In the summer of 2003 after both Tom Mulligan and Bryan Cullen had missed first-half frees, Quinn was introduced in the Leinster semi-final against Laois. Quinn was sent in by way of an emergency service and kicked three points in the second half including two frees. It wasn't enough to save Dublin from a two-point defeat and he wore a subs jersey for the brief run in the qualifiers that summer (a two-game run which ended in defeat to 14-man Armagh, having held a four-point half-time lead. Ray Cosgrove missed two frees inside 30 metres but kicked four. The Dublin bench went a little haywire.) The following year times were rougher. Dublin lost to Westmeath in Leinster having been three up at half-time. Alan Brogan gave them a one-point lead with 10 minutes of normal time remaining.

The referee played six minutes for injuries but in that period Dublin failed to score. Dublin scored two points from dead balls kicked by Senan Connell who that day became the seventh free-taker to be deployed in the Tommy Lyons era.

Quinn, the free-taker right through the league, was introduced for Collie Moran only in the 76th minute.

In the next three qualifier games against London, Leitrim and Longford, Quinn scored 1-13 to be the team's top scorer but wasn't given a start for the fourth round game with Roscommon or the All-Ireland quarter-final with Kerry (on a day when Brogan elevated not being afraid to miss to the level where he might have won a purple heart for his five wides from play). In the winter of 2005 Quinn established himself. On a windy day in Parnell Park he kicked a '45 with the last kick of the game to take the points in a fraught league game with Mayo.

Next day out he scored three frees against Tyrone and then kicked another last second 45-metre kick to take the points against Donegal (on an afternoon when he scored 1-4).

Come the championship, Quinn had a rough start against Meath when he kicked three wides from frees and two from play (despite a fine pass to set up Brogan for Dublin's only goal). He was withdrawn and Vaughan kicked two difficult frees late in the game to secure the two-point win.

The next day against Wexford, Vaughan lasted till half-time before being called ashore.

Quinn kicked 10 points, eight from dead balls. He duly won Dublin the Leinster title with two late frees and against Tyrone in the drawn quarter-final (a five-point half-time lead squandered) yet again he hit a free at the death to nail the draw (he scored 1-7, including five frees and a '45). The next day Owen Mulligan chloroformed Dublin.

Quinn had a bad day made worse by the helpful critiques Ryan McMenamin offered him after each free.

And so to last summer when Dublin needed rescuing with a late '45 and Quinn wasn't there.

Dublin players live in a county where the glass is always half empty, never half full. Brian Kavanagh missed quite a few frees for Longford against Laois but hasn't been crucified. Oisín McConville and Stevie McDonell were three for eight between them in kicks against Donegal. There is no crisis in Joe Kernan's head. Tomorrow Dublin may switch horses.

"The game has changed," says Barney Rock, "There aren't so many frees, lads take it from the hands. There aren't the great specialised free-takers in the game. Oisín McConville has been a fine free-taker. Bryan Sheehan for Kerry is an excellent free-taker. He hasn't had his chance yet really but he consistently puts them over the bar. Cian Ward? I have seen him in club football and he can kick it steady over the bar. He is a very, very good scorer.

"In Dublin you'll always be judged on the ability to kick under a bit of pressure. Mossy kicked two frees against Laois two years ago that won the match and after that, well he got caught a little of late where he hasn't been kicking them over the bar. He'll be judged on that."

"You play with Dublin and that's what you deal with though," says Darcy. "I make no bones about it. I am as tough on myself as any critic would be, I am hard on myself. I just didn't come up to the level that was required. That was it. I knew that before I came to Dublin. It's the highest level of the game. You have to produce the goods.

"You produce the goods and you win. You are the man. You fall and you fail, you take the criticism. That's the deal. Same for the whole team."

"Lads in the crowd don't appreciate how difficult it is," says McCarthy. "I was 19 or so. Weak, young, it was all new. I went from being virtually the team mascot to playing with fellas that I had posters of on my wall. Kicking in front of crowds like that was new. The only way is to be given the chance to bed down."

Tomorrow should Vaughan, as widely thought, play and kick his side's frees, Dublin will have a variety of free-takers at their disposal.

Conal Keaney kicks from his hands on the right, Bryan Cullen can kick frees, as can Diarmuid Connolly and, of course, Quinn. Spin the chamber in the pistol and play Russian roulette anyone?