Dublin GAA Discussion Thread: Mod Note - No 'Dublin Dominance' chat allowed!

Dara Purcell has the potential to transform Dublin hurling. That young fella is special.

I think Dublin will win handy enough. From what I remember of the Kildare v Westmeath game - Kildare had some awful poor patches of play. Really poor wides and decision making. A very frustrating team have some very good players but it never seems to 'click'.

The Kildare fan in front of me was disgusted at how they played and nearly threw the game away against Westmeath in the closing stages. Dublin by 10-15 points would be my guess. As you say it will be interesting because Dublin had that poor second half v Meath. Will Dublin come out flying and keep the accelerator pressed until the final 70 or start pulling up?

I will taking a close look on how the Dublin bench plays they really need to step up and show a bit of 'go'.

In a funny way switching off/playing badly in that second half v Meath is no harm, in that it gives Dessie a chance to light up his players. Imo Kildare are small bit below Meath's level overall, so if Dublin have fire in their bellies you would think the game should be over as a contest with most of the game to go. I don't want to see any sloppiness or switching off this time though! It will be important to make a 'statement' as you say if Dublin are to play Mayo.

If I was Kildare I would just go for in blocks of the game, and run at that Dublin defence who are very suspect these days then 'funnell back' in parts of the game where they need to take the 'sting' out it. Basically just tell the fast lads to run at Dublin and throw in the occasional high ball as well. Are Kildare fit enough to do that I am not so sure? Easier said than done and hard to do in practice and consistently.

I certainly expect a handy win but the level we play at and the subs used will give us an idea how we will get on against mayo which will be a big step up on who we have played so far . Have not seen the subs yet so don't know the injury situation but we certainly will need our best after today .

Very poor shooting from us overall another mediocre display mayo will quite happy watching this .

Good goal by Flynn, sauntering through the Dublin defence...

I'm not even sure what the rules of the game are anymore when we are playing.

That was a scandalous decision to disallow the goal. Seems only our players were over carrying today.

It was collie who played the ball back as he was isolated with 3 Kildare players around him, he took the correct option and it resulted in a point. No player would try and take a ball into contact with three of the opposition.

saw an awful lot of backward passing from some advanced postions today several times no player in support in some good postions .

Kildare set up not to concede goals and it worked well for them. They had a plan and stuck well to it. For all that Dublin hit 20 points.

My concern is also about lack of pace. Each team left has serious pace in the squads and Im not sure we have. The defense was better and thats a plus and also seen glimpses of what they usually do. The game will have brought the team on BUT Im not sure it is enough.

We can find deficiencies in each team that is left but I think they will be better teams than what we have faced over the last 3/4 years.

I think if Kerry beat Tyrone they will win Sam. Hope Im wrong..... There is a matter of Mayo first and they look better than previous years.

It also seems like Dessie doesn't know his "best" team yet and is still tinkering around with selections and pairings in key positions. The truncated league and AI campaigns have probably fed into this but for me he's still a bit unsure about what he wants.

Maybe that pace links the defense and attack better then actually if he was a half forward but either way he’d be effective...

with that awesome pace and athleticism there really isn’t a way to deal with it unless you have two or three on him almost from when he receives the football, which might or will leave you over exposed elsewhere.... try foul him to slow up attacks... could work, the standards of refereeing being so atrocious it could be the most obvious and achievable tactic

The thing about refereeing is that we are not going to get the 50/50 decisions. That is what happens to all great teams. Look at Seamus Darby stopping the Kerry 5-in-a-row, he pushed the Kerry back before scoring the goal. Same in other sports, look at the Arsenal team, kicked off the pitch in their attempt to go 50 unbeaten with the assistance of the referee.

We will get pulled up for overcarrying even if our forward is fouled. We will get punished for dissent. So far, we have escaped black and red cards - they are coming, it happens to all great teams so that the competition will be levelled. Now, this is not a criticism of referees, it is the David vs Goliath underdog thing coming to the fore and happening sub-consciously.

Lads. What's happened to the Reservoir Dubs site? .It's telling me their domain has gone and I can't log in..