Dunne says Offaly took eye off the ball

FOURTEEN weeks and countless more twists and turns need to be negotiated before the number of teams in this year’s football championship is siphoned down to two but one county is already guaranteed it’s place in Croke Park on the third Sunday in September.

Hard as it is to process, it is 25 years since Seamus Darby’s goal deprived Kerry of the five-in-a-row in the most famous of all All-Ireland finals and they will return to HQ as the Jubilee team prior to this year’s decider.

Pádraic Dunne won an All-Star to go along with his Celtic Cross that year, as did six of his colleagues, Matt Connor, Martin Furlong, Sean Lowry among them.