Dubs have the hunger, Kerry the hurt

February 2011 and Dublin have beaten Cork by six points. Under the Hogan Stand, Pat Gilroy is quietly praising his team for getting their discipline in check in the second half, but his calm words betray his delight. Inside he’s dancing.

Of “The Big Three” at the time (Kerry and Tyrone were the other two), Gilroy’s Dublin had not yet defeated Cork, the team that forced them into submission in the previous year’s All-Ireland semi-final.

Psychologically, to finally beat them, even in a football month as irrelevant as a February league match, was the equivalent of striking oil. As Gilroy told a member of the press privately afterwards, his players now knew what it was like to beat all of their strongest rivals. It didn’t matter that the clocks had not yet gone forward; all that concerned him was that a monkey was gone from their backs.