Colin Sheridan: When winning tricks you into missing the flagrant truth
Lee Gannon of Dublin is tackled by Jordan Flynn of Mayo during the Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Dublin and Mayo at Croke Park in Dublin. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
An hour or so after the last saturated stragglers left Jones’ Road on Saturday night, a pair of old foes entered the ring in Manchester to settle a score two decades in the making.
Twenty years after they first fought each other as amateurs, Kell Brook and Amir Khan went toe-to-toe once more, and for the last time.
Notwithstanding the fact theirs was a rivalry defined far more by bitter verbal exchanges than classic bouts, it was a fight that captured the imagination of boxing fans the world over.
Both 35, here were two boxers past their respective primes, barely surviving in a game dominated by younger, quicker, stronger men.
In a classic tale of two old fighters raging against the dying of the light, Khan and Brook were scrapping much more for today than the promise of any better tomorrow.
Defeat would almost certainly end the career of the loser. Victory would likely sustain and inspire the other to at least one more payday.
The animus between the two stems largely from both claiming the other doesn’t respect them.
Brook, arguably the more accomplished of the two, seemed particularly irked last week by claims from Khan that Brook was easily wound up by him: “Kell’s always been very obsessed with my career, like a fanboy,”
Khan said this week. “I’ve been living in his head for such a long time.”
He then fueled the acrimony by saying: “I’m worried about Kell’s health after the beating I’m giving him.”
Fitting, then, that Brook hammered the brave Khan for six brutal rounds before the fight was stopped.
Khan has not yet retired, but should. Brook, warmed by the afterglow of victory, will likely mistakenly think there is more for him to give. Winning does that, it can trick you into missing the flagrant truth.
The stakes were much lower for Dublin and Mayo in Croke Park, but there were tacit parallels nonetheless.
Though both squads are populated by young men, they seem somehow old teams, battered by arduous campaign after arduous campaign.
One - Dublin - have long defined themselves by control and attention to detail. The other, revelling in the chaos of the brawl.
Both, somehow became each others nemesis the last decade - the team in sky blue rarely ever lost - until now - and became the villain for it.
Mayo lost often and, crucially, never won the last game of any of the previous 71 seasons, yet remained much more beloved.
On Saturday, only one team played to type. Mayo once again embraced their inner entropy and capitalised on Dublin’s downward spiral.
James Horan can sometimes be maligned for his gameday management, but his willingness to place trust in youth - especially in Spring - has once again given hope to their loyal following that a long summer awaits.
Jack Carney, Aiden Orme and Paul Towey may be unfamiliar names to those outside the county, but they repaid the trust their manager showed in them with mature displays.
A welcome return to form, too, for Diarmuid O’Connor compounding a sense of optimism for the Mayomen that this is a team on the up.
So then, to Robbie Hennelly, the Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music of this Mayo team.
His recent run of good form has led some critics to declare him the best goalkeeper in the country at the moment.
While this hyperbole will likely be ignored by the Breaffy man, it feeds into a paradoxical equation for Mayo, that best sums up their own perennial existential predicament; do you stick with something that so often works, sometimes beautifully, even poetically, but ultimately fails?
Or do you twist, scared by the muscle memory of visceral losses for which you only have yourselves to blame?
Hennelly's abilities as goalkeeper, with both boot and hand, have never been in doubt. It’s only been in the red hot heat of finals that his vulnerabilities have been so brutally and cruelly exposed.
What is true for him has been true for the team as a whole.
While his form is a delight to behold, it masks a deeper truth with Mayo that will only be revealed if they are fortunate enough (and good enough) to once again find themselves at the business end of things.
At least there was reason to hope again for Mayo. Dublin’s decline may not be as terminal as some believe, but with Donegal, Kildare, Tyrone and Monaghan yet to play (the latter three away), things will likely get worse before they inevitably get better in the early rounds of their Leinster campaign.
Many teams have suffered relegation from Division One only to follow it up with a successful summer.
The watermark for Dublin is higher for them than for every other team. Rebuilding, transition, call it what you will. When you win so much, losing becomes an unwelcome imposter.
When it penetrates the psyche it can bed in and feed on residual doubt. Mayo have lost so often, they have consistently proven themselves unbothered by it. They embrace it even.
It’s surely too risky a strategy for Dessie Farrell to write the league off entirely? To rope-a-dope us all into thinking they are a spent force before counterpunching their way back to the summit?
For all we think about them, it is quite possible that, however entertaining their rivalry might be, Mayo and Dublin are on track to becoming as irrelevant to the championship as Khan and Brook are to boxing.
If Kerry can get serious. If Tyrone can retain their edge.
If Galway can set aside 20 years of posturing and navel gazing and tap into the quiet chaos of Sean Kelly - the form footballer in the country at the moment - Mayo and Dublin may yet be consigned to the undercard.
