Dubs "quite an ordinary team" without Con, says Spillane

Kerry great Pat Spillane feels that Dublin are now an ordinary team when star forward Con O’Callaghan isn’t on the field for them.

Despite being named at full-forward, O’Callaghan did not start in the capital men’s preliminary quarter-final clash with Cork last Saturday and remained on the bench throughout as they edged a 1-19 to 1-16 win over the Rebels at Croke Park.

The result has advanced Dessie Farrell’s charges on to a last eight date with Tyrone on Saturday evening at headquarters (6.15pm), where the Dubs fans will be hoping a fully fit O’Callaghan will be available for their team and Spillane reckons they’ll need the Cuala star.

“Without Con, Dublin are quite an ordinary team,” he told the Indo GAA podcast. “They were impressive last week, the game was a fairly average game of football. The atmosphere was very flat. Dublin's experience, (Sean) Bugler, (Brian) Howard, the kick-outs were brilliant.

“In the last quarter their game management and their bigtime football experience really came to the fore. They restricted Cork to three points in the last quarter. Leaders showed up.

“But like I said, without Con they're ordinary.”

As for his verdict on this weekend’s clash between the Dubs and the Red Hands, Spillane added: “(Darren) McCurry and (Darragh) Canavan are brilliant and you look at the Dublin full-back line last week. They conceded 1-10 against that Cork full-forward line. Are they vulnerable? Yes. Can that full-back line be got at? Absolutely. Have they impact subs? I don't think they have. Are they (Dublin) scoring lots of two-pointers from play? No, they're not. Tyrone have a damn good chance and in last round of the national league, Dublin needed to beat Tyrone to qualify for the league final and Tyrone turned them over.

“Tyrone with two weeks break, in the long grass, written off, the hype is starting to get behind the Dubs again. A shock could be on the cards.”