With settled dust and healing wounds, you can sympathise with Stephen Rochford.
The Mayo manager took plenty of flak in October when he sprung a surprise change on the day of the All-Ireland final replay and brought Rob Hennelly into the starting team ahead of David Clarke.
As it transpired, the replacement goalkeeper didn’t have the best of games, Dublin capitalised and won by a point.
In the seething aftermath, that decision was blown out of proportion because of the fine, All-Star winning year that Clarke had been enjoying previously and because of the result of course.
The reality is that Mayo didn’t enjoy great success from their kickouts in the drawn game and Clarke, if anything, panicked a little towards the end of the game, kicking a few aimless efforts and rushing his kickouts when they needed calm.
So the manager made a decision in a bid to presumably help them in that area. Overall, it backfired but the thing that has been forgotten about in the fallout is that it was Hennelly’s drilled, pinpoint kick that started the Mayo goal which Lee Keegan buried.
Clarke is back and he’s starring again but Dublin targetted his kicks on Saturday night and they did it well.
They had their homework done https://t.co/wOXod1oB0B #Dublin #Mayo #GAA
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 6, 2017
On SportsJOE’s GAA Hour football show, former Meath star Cian Ward spoke in-depth about Clarke’s kickouts and how they put Mayo under a bit more pressure against the Dubs.
“Another area where Mayo blew up [on Saturday night] was the kickouts,” Ward said.
“His kickouts are just hanging too long in the air, they’re looping up in the air and allowing the opposition time to attack the ball. If Clarke is playing them short, they have to be perfect.
“One of the great examples was the Galway goalkeeper against Meath, he was a really good kicker of the ball. He could really drill the ball low, drill it 30 or 40 metres onto a guy’s chest with the ball not going above head height – that’s a really good skill.
“David Clarke can’t do that. He doesn’t have that skill.
“So his kickouts, when he’s playing them short, are hanging for too long. If he’s trying to kick it over a full back line or over the half back line, they’re hanging too long and that causes massive, massive pressure on the half backs.”
The drawback is that David Clarke is a top ‘keeper, regardless of whether his kickouts are stronger or weaker than someone else’s.
His shot-stopping is second to none. His triple save on Saturday night was ridiculous. Plain ridiculous.
His kicking is not the be all and end all.
“When Mayo have their full contingent, when Aidan and Seamy O’Shea are back, maybe they do just kick it direct – go to the middle of the field a bit more often, which I think would suit them better,” he said on The GAA Hour (analysis starts from 8:55 here).
“There’s no doubt that Clarke is top class but that’s a facet of his game that put his team under a bit of pressure at the weekend.
“I’ll counter that by saying that his penalty save and second save and third save were brilliant. You’re nit-picking when you’re talking about these things but they are the small margins – when you talk about why are Dublin better than Mayo, that’s another small thing but it’s a big thing in the overall context of the result after 70 minutes.”
Listen to the full analysis below.
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