O’Rourke credits Dubs’ Maradona - two

Perhaps, in hindsight, fortune took too many hostages.

For the match. For Mayo.

Maybe Michael Lyster called it with his opening prompt. “Are we naïve in expecting a lovely open game of football?”

The trio alongside him made unlikely innocents, but there they were; eyes wide.

Hard-bitten Colm O’Rourke sneaking downstairs to open his presents: “Two teams who have gone out to play football in a proper manner and restored our faith in the game. There is going to be one winner; the game of Gaelic football.”

Joe Brolly, tubthumping his manifesto for change: “We have seen the two paths of Gaelic football, one path, where winning is everything and the game serves no social function. Blanket defending and systematic fouling… And the path these two teams have taken; a tonic. Hopefully a game we’ll all be able to celebrate.”

Naturally, Pat Spillane couldn’t ignore Joe’s record in opposition.

“Isn’t it great to see, like St Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. After 10 years of espousing these fantastic defensive systems, he has now, at last, begun to agree with me.”

For Mayo, Pat talked of destiny, of name on the cup. Outside Croke Park, John Maughan had already been in touch with the engraver. “No matter what happens, I think our name is etched on it.”

O’Rourke could find “no madness in the Mayo team”. He meant it as a positive. “Traditionally, on All-Ireland day, Mayo threw up a lot of shapers. And they were exposed. They are not that kind of team any more.”

It was Dublin’s glass chin that worried Brolly. “Dublin are the Amir Kahn of Gaelic football; dazzling attack, dodgy defence.”

A delivery Lyster shouldn’t have nibbled at. Caught out. “Not being a cricket fan, the Amir Kahn reference…” How they laughed. Still, at least it prompted some reverie from Pat, and a reminder of a time he was caught leg over wicket.

“I was in Adelaide in 1981 in a nightclub and this girl told me — I was trying to chat her up — you know who I was with last night; Imran Kahn. I said, ‘well you go back and tell him who you were with tonight: Pat Spillane, Kerry footballer’.”

It wouldn’t be the last insight we’d get into the nocturnal activities of RTÉ personnel.

Half-time arrived as a reality check. Expectation dumped on the canvas.

“Helter-skelter… like boxers midway through a heavyweight contest, they have been taking a break,” said Brolly. Like Wasim Akram and Sachin Tendulkar maybe.

“Very hard to figure it out. We presumed we’d get a shoot-out at the OK Corral, but we haven’t,” said Pat.

O’Rourke: “What you’re trying to say; it’s a poor enough game.”

Brolly suggested some of the Mayo forwards wouldn’t be giving up their reputation for shaping without a fight. “We can’t be having this wishy-washy stuff that’s gone on in the Mayo forward line.

“It’s time for them to stand up. This is the end of the line. This is the time for Mayo.”

In the end they ran out of time. Cue Ger Canning’s big admission. Despite the open invitation issued by the last Dublin captain to lift the trophy, he has never been to Coppers.

“They don’t serve tea…”

In studio, Spillane wondered if it wasn’t that bit of missing madness that cost Mayo in the end. “They didn’t go bald-headed for it.”

Brolly felt their forwards “didn’t have the stuffing for it.”

O’Rourke thought the game “a bit flat”, but if football didn’t turn out the clear winner, the Dubs had.

“The agony in the garden goes on for Mayo, but Dublin were by far the better team. Mayo backs were heroic, but Dublin had too much power all over the field.”

For Pat, it came down to Bernard Brogan.

“If you analyse all the All-Ireland winners; it’s about the marquee forwards that are unstoppable on the day.

“You can bring all the psychologists and statisticians you like; skill and quality forwards win matches.”

And on a day of sporting confusion; O’Rourke drafted one more set of compromise rules:

“The Maradona of Dublin football… two goals with the hand.”