With Nickie Quaid and Brian Fenton out of the picture we’re about to see what ‘irreplaceable’ really looks like
Dublin’s Brian Fenton played 56 straight championship games in a row until he was suspended for the Meath game this year. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
But goalkeepers, and particularly this goalkeeper, exist in another category. The brilliance of his shot-stopping is matched only by the coolness and composure of his puck-outs. Trying to plug someone into that level of detail is going to be extremely challenging. But at least Quaid will be there to help the next man up, while working back to fitness, and the possibility of his return to the team after the Munster championship means this is still a blow that Limerick could absorb.
He repeated the word later — “unrecoverable”. That is a high bar. But without McCarthy and Fenton, the gap in midfield is a chasm. Tom Lahiff and Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne have played plenty of minutes for Dublin over the last few years, but they are nowhere near the level of the two men who started against Galway in Dublin’s last championship game of 2024. That’s hardly a knock on them, as McCarthy and Fenton might be two of Dublin’s three greatest footballers, but that’s the reality.
James McCarthy has missed plenty of football over the last three or four years, and so Dublin have had plenty of chances to get used to the idea of him being absent, temporarily or permanently. Brian Fenton, on the other hand, played 56 straight championship games in a row until he was suspended for the Meath game this year. According to Maurice Brosnan in the Irish Examiner, he had missed 35 minutes in total in that 56-game stretch. Once he was in the team, he never left.
Limerick have had plenty of practice replacing key cogs in their machine, but they’ve done that by repurposing highly efficient players into slightly different roles. That won’t cut it this time. Another individual will have to step into the breach, and whether that’s Mary I’s Fitzgibbon Cup winner from earlier this year Jason Gillane, David McCarthy, or Conor Hanley Clarke, they will have to operate under intense pressure. But that’s the ball game.
Whatever the future holds, Brian Fenton won’t be a part of it. And for two incredibly successful teams, we’re about to see what irreplaceable really looks like.Walter Walsh looks to life after intercounty hurling retirement as injuries start to take tollMOST READ
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