It’s the Holy Grail that every team strives for on All-Ireland final day - a 70-minute performance.
But do Dublin actually need one? Could they perform at their peak for as little as 20 minutes and still make off with the five-in-a-row?
Jonny Cooper instinctively shakes his head but then you present him with the facts; 2-6 in 12 minutes against Mayo - game over. 3-4 in 15 minutes against Cork in the Super 8s - game over. 2-6 in 20 minutes against Tyrone in last year’s final - game over.
Dublin actually lost the second-half of that 2018 All-Ireland decider, by 1-8 to 0-10, yet had long since broken Tyrone’s challenge.
The reality is that this Dublin team is all about short, sharp shocks, scoring blitzkriegs that bury their bewildered opponents before they even know what’s hit them.
Experienced defender Cooper said: “You sure have to aim for it, a 75 or 76-minute performance, or whatever the game lasts. I’d hope we’ll play for the 70 minutes against Kerry and certainly the team we’re going to play will feel they need that I guess.
“If you only have it for 20 minutes or half an hour, I don’t know, I don’t think that’s going to be enough.
“It’s just trying, as it always is, about getting that consistency of performance for the duration.
“Obviously it doesn’t always happen, it generally goes up and down for different reasons, but you have to aim for it.”
Tyrone thought they had a chance in last year’s final after racing into a 0-5 to 0-1 lead. But they were outscored by 2-6 to 0-1 from there until half-time, effectively ending the contest.
An interesting investigation into when Dublin were at their most prolific in the games played throughout 2018, and including the 2017 final, revealed that it was between the 21st and 30th minutes.
From an eight-game sample of Championship games, it emerged that they outscored their opponents by 5-20 to 0-16 in this 10-minute period before half-time. Between the 11th and 20th minutes, in comparison, they’d merely broken even with the opposition across eight games.
The figures revealed a second spike in Dublin’s scoring that occurred in the third quarter of games, consistent with how they turned it on against Mayo.
What it points to is an experienced team happy to size up its prey before striking with lethal intent when the opportunity arises.
Cooper said: “It doesn’t really change our mindset, if we’re up or down. Trying to get a better start than last year’s final would be important but I don’t know in the grand scheme of things - is it vital?
“We’ll probably just stick to our play by play and go from there, how we’ve always done it.”
Why change a winning formula? It’s brought them this far, to the brink of becoming the first team to win five-in-a-row.
Cooper said: “I’m really looking forward to the challenge. It’s obviously a massive challenge in terms of the individuals Kerry have but also the collective and the way they play.
They share the load in terms of their scorers and their threat, it can come from deep or from around the field. So we’ll be ready for that.”
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