Conor McKeon

And Conor McHugh came in and he was brilliant.

And like that's a huge thing.

They played with a sweeper yesterday.

Yeah.

But like in a weird way it was almost like an offensive play because like once the ball broke down all the Dublin defenders had to do was make the ball hit the ground and Brian Hayes inevitably would swoop in and once you have that extra player and you have possession you now have an overlap you just have to keep you just have to keep changing position as it went up the pitch.

And then broadly nullified the extra man, you know, they kind of vacated the 10 and 12 channels and like somehow they managed to play with a sweeper, but also kept three up.

And they used John Hetherton brilliantly in the first half and they used Ronan Hayes brilliantly in the second half.

So like they're quickly gaining a reputation as one of the more...

I suppose just tactically on top of the teams out there they're using they're using these players incredibly well you know like there was nobody calling for John Hederton to spearhead the Dublin attack when Nilo Calicon took over and yet here he is same thing when Liam Rush came back there was no talk that you know they needed Liam Rush back after four years away to show up to defence

Granted, he didn't play yesterday, but the change in how they've defended has meant they've had three clean sheets in a row.

So slowly and slowly, they're getting better.

And like yesterday, up front, Conor O'Rean had a great game.

Didn't go well for David Purcell, but there's a couple of young attackers.

And if they come on, even this summer, you could see Dublin becoming challengers again.

Because all they're doing really is...

This is where Dublin and Ireland should be.

They shouldn't be beating Kilkenny every year.

But if you go back to 2013, if you'd have said that would be the last time in 13 years that Dublin would beat Kilkenny, nobody would have believed it at the time.

I think everybody would have thought that that was the start of something rather than the culmination of it.

But there are very positive signs.