One of the not necessarily unfavourable criticisms of Dublin’s championship run this summer has been the decreasing dependency on their replacements. Part of the strength of a good bench is actually its unpredictability, at least in terms of which players are there to bring on.
And if the players on the field are already doing a good enough job to sustain Dublin’s now 27-game unbeaten streak, what’s the problem?
Still, since Jim Gavin took charge, in 2013, it would appear the scoring replacement options have been narrowing, particularly when it comes to the climax of the championship. In the 2013 final win over Mayo, Gavin used five replacements, who contributed 0-2; in the 2015 final win over Kerry, he used six replacements, who contributed 0-1.
Impact
Indeed so far, the 2016 tally for replacements is just 1-6, when it 2013 that tally was 3-16.
None of this matters to players like Darren Daly, who came off the bench in both the 2013 final (replacing Jack McCaffrey) and the 2015 final (replacing Cian O'Sullivan): even if he didn't score on either day, Daly has to believe his impact can or will make a difference.
“From my end, you have to believe that, all the time,” he says. “You have to have some belief to drive you on. Whether there are starting positions up for grabs [for Sunday] I don’t know, and that’s not for me to decide, so I just need to focus on what I can.”
Kevin McManamon is the perfect case in point: ever since his match-winning impact off the bench in the 2011 final over Dublin, he was labelled Dublin's go-to replacement; only now he's almost certain to start against Mayo on Sunday
Michael Darragh Macauley had a similar impact off the bench in last year’s final against Kerry; likewise Eoghan O’Gara in the 2013 win over Mayo.
Added hope
For Daly, the now 29-year- old from Fingal Ravens, there is some added hope of playing some part on Sunday given the absence of fellow defenders McCaffrey and Rory O’Caroll: indeed Daly might well have believed that would have increased his chances of nailing down a starting place, only for Davy Byrne and John Small to slot into those vacancies with apparent ease.
Yet buying into the “collective” – as Gavin puts it – is one of the apparent secrets behind Dublin’s success, and Daly appears to believe in that: even if he didn’t get a semi-final run against Kerry this year, he still believes he has a role to play on Sunday.
“You definitely have to stay positive,” he says. “I have been in the same sort of position before the last couple of finals, played the quarter-final, didn’t play the semi-, then lucky enough to get on in the finals.
“Everyone has their own goals, all looking towards the collective goal. But whether the goal is that you want a few minutes or you are starting, you know what you are chasing..”
Such is manager Gavin’s disregard for traditional numbers (1-15 for the starting team, 16- 24 for the replacements) that he began this season by numbering his panel alphabetically, for the O’Byrne Cup, in that way lessening the emphasis on the number each player wears. Gavin would rather have kept it that way for the entire season too, had the GAA’s playing rules not demanded otherwise.
“You have to have that belief in everyone that is on the panel,” says Daly. “We are in an All-Ireland final, so it hasn’t gone too bad.”
