Is Ireland big enough for Dublin and its vast sporting reach?

Hard to believe but it’s over six years since Dublin GAA’s provocative ‘Blue Wave’ strategic plan was met with a tsunami of snipes.

A Sam Maguire every three years, it stated. A Liam MacCarthy every five. Pat Gilroy has it all to do now to make up for lost time with the hurlers but he had only just broken the All-Ireland drought with the footballers when he described the grand ambitions laid down by his own people for the big ball as “unpractical”.

Little did he, or any of us, know then what was to come.