One more spin of the Whelan?

ALL over the capital, chests are being used as billboards for Arnotts. Natural order has been restored. The sky-blue buzz has returned with Dublin back in a Leinster final.

And one player above any other is generating fevered debate in northside watering-holes. Ciaran Whelan. The great metropolitan enigma. Things are going well and Whelan, we’re told, is an unstoppable force of athleticism driving the Dubs forward. Things aren’t going so well and Whelan is over-rated, lazy and not doing his bit.

“When Dublin football is going well, things are over-exaggerated and over-hyped and when things are down, it is exactly the same,” says the midfielder, who might as well be talking about his own career.