GAA talking points: Will 2020 be a watershed year for Gaelic football?
Stephen Cluxton of Dublin and Martin Reilly of Cavan fist bump after the one-sided All-Ireland semi-final. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
So this is where sport goes to die.
An empty stadium and Dublin absolutely pulverising the best that Ulster has to offer this year. There is a strong chance now that Dublin will go through this Championship year without conceding a single goal, and winning all their games by 10 points or more.
In fact, it all seems a grim inevitability. And the debate does not call into question, the appetite, the skill levels, the dedication of this current group of footballers, or indeed those that have played since the first year of Pat Gilroy's time in charge. It's not about any of that.
Equally, seeking out the views of former Dublin players is utterly futile. How can you expect anyone who has grown up aspiring to be a Dublin footballer, spent over a decade of their adult life in the squad, to have any sense or remove from the debate.
So don't ask Bernard Brogan, or Ciaran Whelan, or anyone else what they think, if Dean Rock practises his free-taking more than anyone. If they work harder or smarter than others in the gym. And if you do, let's not take the responses seriously.
At the final whistle, there wasn't a flicker of emotion from those involved with the Dublin team at making an All-Ireland final.
This Saturday night was played out in a great big empty husk of a stadium, in a big empty husk of a once-great sporting competition. If you're fine with that, then good. But this has long since ceased to be entertaining.
While Cavan secured three league promotions since 2014, championship results in that period were disappointing overall.
When Mickey Graham came in at the tail end of 2018, he immediately made it clear that, for him, championship is where it’s at. In his first year, Cavan were relegated back to Division 2 of the league but made a first Ulster final in 18 years.
In his second, they were relegated again but landed the Anglo-Celt Cup for the first time in 23 years. It doesn’t take a genius to work out which competition the Cavan fans are glad Graham focussed on.
Despite the 15-point loss to the Dubs on Saturday, Graham has a huge amount of positives to draw on. There was no shock-and-awe offensive by the home side (forgive us that one!); the death they inflicted was prolonged and didn’t seem as violent for that.
Without the usual savage mutilation, Cavan should avoid being scarred as other teams have. Should they make it back to that stage, they will have a better idea of how to cope, with Dublin’s swarm tackling in particular seeming to catch them by surprise.
Cavan made a succession of unforced errors in the first half which is common at Croker, where teams clearly get spooked by the five-time defending champions.
Defender Padraig Faulkner mentioned as much afterwards; that Cavan were disappointed not to be much closer at the break. That spoke to their ambition.
They gave it a good go and though they came up short, the experience will stand to them and the medium term future looks bright. In all, 11 players aged 22 or under made match day panels across the five championship games. Goalkeeper Ray Galligan – an All-Star in waiting, surely – and Martin Reilly are 33 but are playing as well as ever.
Gearoid McKiernan and Niall Murray are 30; there is a large group, then, in their mid-20s. This Cavan side are in their prime and the experience and confidence of this season means that championship specialist Graham should get a good tune out of them for a few more years to come.
On the eve of Saturday’s All-Ireland final, an interview Jim Gavin gave to mark him being awarded with honorary life membership of the Royal Dublin Society was published on YouTube.
The former Dublin manager spoke about never mentioning winning once in the dressing room.
“I would have coached the Dublin senior football team, managed them for seven years, and the U21 for five and on top of that I coached them for a year. Over those 12 years and those nine All-Irelands that they won, I didn’t have to mention winning once.
"What we tried to execute was a performance and that might sound quite cold and clinical but the reality of it is in any business, in any organisation, how well you perform will dictate the outcome. So if you perform to your very best both as an individual and collectively generally speaking the outcome will be what you want.
"So we didn’t focus on the outcome, we focused on getting our performance right.”
Gavin also told of how he brought the team in May of last year before their five-in-a-row accomplishment to Clonturk Park in Drumcondra where Dublin won their first All-Ireland final, the 1891 final in 1892.
There, a historian told them about the game. “It just put into context where the players fit along in that chain,” he said.
Dublin have been looking at things bigger than themselves, bigger than winning individual games these last 10 seasons.
The funding arguments and advantages aside, might that sense be another reason behind their emphatic reign over Gaelic football?
Those who have called for the black card to be extended to hurling, to curb cynical play, should be careful what they wish for.
Lee Keegan decided to 'take one for the team' early in the second-half as Michael Quinlivan raced goalwards and dragged down the former All-Star forward.
Keegan was already eyeing up his seat in the stand before David Gough had pulled out the black card. Aside from Quinlivan's initial outrage, there wasn't a whole lot of fuss about the WrestleMania move but there should have been.
It denied Tipp the oxygen of a goal at a vital time and in the 10 minutes when Keegan was off the field, the underdogs were outscored by 1-3 to 0-3.
A penalty for Tipp, along with the black card for Keegan, would have been far closer to justice.
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