The tiniest of cracks are appearing in Blue machine

Although Paul Mannion’s injury-time point in Croke Park last Saturday night maintained the remarkable trend that any Dublin defeat these past five seasons has been by only a kick of a ball, it was striking how Jim Gavin afterwards made no effort to conceal both his acknowledgement and his displeasure that in truth, Tyrone had outplayed his side by more than three points. Go through the previous six defeats Dublin have incurred since he revamped his team in the wake of Donegal’s 2014 All-Ireland semi-final ambush and he has always looked on the bright side of life and his players.

When they lost to Cork by two points on Brian Fenton’s debut down in Páirc Uí Rinn on the opening day of the 2015 season, he repeatedly spoke about the “big positive” that was trying out “a group of players who haven’t a lot of experience, [yet] they put themselves in a position to win the game.” A fortnight later when they lost out to reigning All-Ireland champions Kerry in a dogfight down in Killarney, he spoke about how he was “very proud” of his players “trying their very best”.