Five in a row isn’t the only record on blue horizon

Long before its conclusion, the 2018 football championship had assumed all the air and feel of a national league coming to its customary mild conclusion. Yeah, yeah ,yeah, yeah, OK, so such-and-such won it, fair play to them, but cut to the chase — how will they get on in the forthcoming championship?

That sense was all the more compounded last Sunday. Being well short of the sort of nailbiter which Mayo and Kerry subjected Dublin to in previous years and left neutrals breathless and moved, the sight of Stephen Cluxton and his teammates on the steps of the Hogan Stand to raise Sam Maguire aloft was a bit like impassively watching them up there some Sunday in April upon collecting and clocking up another league at their considerable leisure. They were always likely to win that but on to what’s next — will they win the big one?

They were always going to win four in a row — but will they win the five?