No guarantees with underage success

DUBLIN’S hurling day looks to be coming — but we wonder about the sense of inevitability that has grown up around the matter in some quarters.

“All-Irelands are not that aisy won,” as the man said. Underage success does not automatically lead to senior glory — and, side by side with reports of Dublin’s emergence as an underage force, you will find many studies of why Galway are unable to translate youthful dominance into something more substantial up the line.

As Galway know only too well, no underage system brings senior guarantees. So many other imponderables enter the equation: the quality of the senior management at any given time being just one, not to mention the enthusiasm of key players, the availability of suitable employment and many others.