Something to savour

SO THIS Dublin-Kerry thing isn’t just frivolous froth after all. Other rivalries sparkled occasionally this year, but it took until the penultimate game of the football championship – and a bone-shuddering clash of the code’s most successful teams – to serve up a footballing smorgasbord worth stocking beyond September.

The margins at the end of August can be tissue-thin and in applauding Kerry’s nous and poise on and without the ball in yesterday’s All-Ireland semi-final, it’s difficult to identify what more Dublin and their management could have done. Perhaps Bryan Cullen isn’t a centre-back, maybe particular forwards don’t have the assassin’s steady trigger-finger, but they’ve come up short in successive semi-finals by margins measured in seconds and inches, bootlaces and fingertips.

“Disappointment wouldn’t do any justice to the feelings in that dressing room,” sighed Paul Caffrey after their 1-15 to 0-16 defeat in front of the 82,000-plus attendance.