It's time to deliver the title, says Moran

HE has been one of their obsessions for a while now.

Never mind that Colin Moran is still in his early twenties, that only last year he was young enough to fall at the last provincial hurdle with the U21s, he has been around. There have been a few barren years since Tommy Carr unmasked him as the bright, young thing of his revolution.

You grow up fast in a Dublin shirt. One year, it is all sweetness and roses. The next year, the barbs are flying from the Hill, you shouldn’t be on the team. Only Moran’s freshness of face gives away that he’s not a veteran. In all counties, you are one bad game away from a barrage of criticism. When you are a Dub though, the lines are more clearly defined. An intensive media spotlight ensures your fall from grace is more high-profile.

Young as he is, Moran speaks with the careful tongue of a veteran who recognises the significance of winning this Leinster title: “This is a really important game for us. It was a great day for this team, beating Meath. It was a monkey off our backs, but it is in the past. There have been too many days when we walked out of Croke Park beaten. And too many days, when we walked out with only ourselves to blame. Our supporters might have blamed referees or managers, but as players, we knew it was our fault. For most of this team, it is our fourth Leinster final and, to be honest, we need to win this one. To lose four Leinster finals in a row would be unthinkable.”

However, a lot of recent history in Dublin football is unthinkable. How about under-age teams containing prodigiously talented footballers like Moran, Peader Andrews, Johnny Magee and Shane Ryan not winning any titles, at all.

“For so many of this team, we have come through the ranks from minor, U21, right through to senior and not one of us have a Leinster medal between us. It is a remarkable statistic.”

You can’t discuss Sunday with a Dub and not travel back two years. The most disastrous two minutes of Tom Carr’s reign, just after the interval when Dublin, playing the finest football of the season, were derailed by two early sucker punches. Collie Moran got the solitary score of the Dubs’ pitiful second half, and the demons bred that day continue to lurk.

“There is still a ghost there, alright. It is a defeat that anybody playing for Dublin that day will be unable to forget. Even if we beat Kildare on Sunday, that will still haunt us. When we didn’t score for 23 minutes against Meath the last day, we fell asleep. You were starting to think: 'oh no, not again'.”

What was the difference between then and now? How did Dublin alert themselves to their sleepwalking?

“We got a little bit of luck, I know people talk a lot about luck, but it is an important element. In other years, against Meath, we weren’t able to get that all-important goal. Somehow, we managed it the last day.”

Sunday will see The Hill alive to hope again, Moran one of the leading beacons. Even his opponents know Moran will have to be eyed more closely than some of his team-mates. “Collie Moran is an exceptional player,” Mick O’Dwyer feels. “He is one of the footballers I have really enjoyed watching over the past couple of years.” However, just a few short months ago, it looked like Moran would be watching from the sidelines himself.

The Dublin panel had just recongregated in January, when Moran’s back started to creak. Within a few weeks, he thought his season was over: “Back in March, I was undergoing intensive physiotherapy, but I really didn’t believe I would be back in time for the championship. At that stage, it was all about getting my health back. And it was lonely. There were days back in March and April when I would be going for treatment, but I wondered if I would manage to make it back for the championship at all.”

By May, some revolutionary physiotherapeutic technique had coaxed him back to full fitness. Although he was passing on the physical stuff in training, Moran was back in the jig saw. His display against Meath only confirmed how important he has become.

And still with a full career ahead of him. Colin Moran feels it’s time he started collecting medals.