Diarmuid Connolly: Dour, defensive football out of fashion

No-one could accuse former Dublin footballer Diarmuid Connolly of being risk-averse and holding on to possession for possession's sake.

The gifted St Vincent’s forward bowed out of the inter-county game with 11 Leinster titles, seven All-Irelands and four All-Stars, but it would be a disservice to measure his worth solely on numbers.

"It is the players with personality who stand out and live on in our memory," former Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice once said of Connolly.

Jonny Cooper, while Dublin were in the midst of the six-in-a-row, insisted his team-mate was right up there with anyone he had played with for "his ability to probably do every skill in the game at a really high and efficient level".

With his long-range shooting, pinpoint kick-passing and an eye for finding space, Connolly is at odds with what many feel are the ills of the modern game: packed defences, methodical build-ups with mainly hand-passing and low-risking shooting.

Speaking on The GAA Roundtable, which will be broadcast on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on St Stephen’s Day, the 36-year-old believes a lot of defensive football on display comes down to fear and that positive coaching is the only way to overcome it.

"What are players afraid of?" he asks. "Are they afraid of making mistakes? The whole game revolves around making mistakes and trying to make the opposition try to make mistakes so you can score.

"If you are risk averse in that scenario, what is the point?"

Connolly recalled a dour 2015 league encounter as one of the low points in his own experiences of coming up against defensively-minded opposition.

The previous year Jim Gavin’s men had been shocked by Donegal in an All-Ireland semi-final, but that game was at least a free-flowing encounter, unlike the