Tomás Ó Sé Take On Dublin Struggles Will Be Huge Concern To Dubs Fans

Few would have predicted that Dublin would be entering the All-Ireland round-robin without yet another Leinster crown to their name.

The Dubs have not been the imperious force of old in recent years, even with their All-Ireland win in 2023. Nonetheless, their defeat to Meath in Leinster sent shockwaves through Gaelic football and appeared to signal the formal end of their time at the top of the game.

Of course, knowing Dublin and how they have operated since that famous win in 2011, fans may feel reluctant to fully write them off for 2025.

Thrown in a group with Galway, Armagh, and Derry, though, they will have to battle if they are to bring Sam Maguire back to the capital this year.

Many have blamed their struggles on the mass exodus of talent from the great six-in-a-row team.

Paul Mannion, Jack McCaffrey, Brian Fenton, James McCarthy and John Small have all been sorely missed on Dessie Farrell's panel this season, with Fenton's absence in particular highlighted as a cause for their struggles in adapting to the new rules.

However, Kerry legend Tomás Ó Sé believes their problems run much deeper than that.

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Speaking on the RTÉ GAA podcast this week, Ó Sé explained the reasons he thinks Dublin are in "bother" in the new era of Gaelic football.

Though almost all counties have had teething problems of some kind with the new rule book, Dublin's have been more pronounced.

Asked whether he thought the Dubs' struggles were more to blame on their system or lack of personnel, Ó Sé gave an answer which will be of concern to the county's fans.

I think they've struggled hugely on their kickouts. Cluxton, who will go down as the greatest goalkeeper of all time and reinvented the game...he's still today trying to get short ones off.

In the modern game, if you're kicking it out long, teams find it easier to push up. The Cluxton short kickoff is gone if you don't have the personnel outside.

Look at Galway, the team they'll be facing, they have six, seven men in and around the middle of the park and it suits to contest those balls.

Yes, Dublin had big men around the middle and they have the likes of Kilkenny...but I still think it's a mixture [of personnel and system issues].

Every team is struggling, there's no team that has it perfected in every aspect of defence and attack with the new rules. I think it will take us another year before eveyrbody does.

Dublin are struggling with the new rules in terms of the kickout and, I suppose, they were for years...[2014] Donegal came with that solution of how to stop and how to counteract teams - legally, it must be said. Credit where credit is due, nobody else had thought of it. Plenty of teams have tried to replicate it and not got it right.

Dublin were the team for years after that who broke [teams] down. If you wanted to play it slow, they could break it down. If you wanted to play it fast, they could do that as well. I think it's a bit of both.

If you don't have the players to do either, you're in bother. I think that's the biggest thing that will be thrown at Dublin.

Ó Sé pointed out that even the senior, reliable players in the Dublin squad, such as Ciarán Kilkenny and Con O'Callaghan, have been on the panel for some time, and that there has not been a fresh injection of talent into the squad.

Dessie Farrell has won All-Irelands as a manager at underage and senior level but, were he to pull one off this season, it would perhaps rank as his greatest ever achievement. As things stand, it looks unlikely for Dublin.

They face Galway in the first game of their All-Ireland series on Saturday evening at 5pm, with the game live on GAA+.