There are three things that are a certainty in life - death, taxes and Dublin losing in September. While the rest of the nation rejoices at the Dub’s inability to break the pattern for Dublin fans it’s a sad case of déjà vu all over again.
For the many of you who are not fans of Gilroy’s men being a Dublin fans feels a lot like being Cinderella but without the fairytale wedding. You get very excited about going to the ball, have a great time, totally forget about your wretched life or in Dublin’s case awful recent history of big game failure, think finally this is your time and when you think you’re going to seal the deal, boom!, the clock turns to midnight, or September, and everything turns into a pumpkin.
It’s too early to tell if Pat Gilroy is Dublin’s Prince Charming but there are signs he could be the one. He has crafted a hard working team with a great game plan based on the highly successful Tyrone model of suffocating attackers and swarming around opponents to afford them as little time as possible and force them to make quick ill advised decisions. He has turned a bunch of mouthy, arrogant, show off footballers with a me first philosophy into a hard working team unit, gone are the days of playing up to the hill like an untrained, dramatic actor on the stage would to the gallery. Instead, yob like behaviour has been replaced by a team effort and dare I say it maybe the most likable Dublin team, if there is such a term, in a while and perhaps his greatest miracle of all he has thought Alan Brogan to pass the ball, a feat that even Jesus himself would be in awe of.
But alas, there is to be no open bus parade down O’Connell Street, as the team Parades Sam in front of Anto, Deco, Steo and Zumo. There is enough hope to suggest that the 16 year and counting journey maybe be coming to an end soon, that a summer that started with calls for the head of Gilroy after they stumbled out of the gate against Wexford and got humbled old country way by Meath, ends with a sense of hope and the knowledge that if they can curb there indiscipline and poor decision-making something only big game experience can solve then maybe just maybe Gilroy’s army will march in to Croker one sunny September afternoon and claim the prize that has eluded them for so long.
And yet the pessimistic in me also knows that the two monsters of football, for the last decade, still cast a shadow over every team in the country for next year. There is no way Kerry and Tyrone will play like they did this year, next year, no way. Instead they will shuffle off into the winter wilderness and evolve and grow stronger and even though the media will write them off and call them ageing or too old, class is permanent and it would not surprise me to see those two lock horns again for Sam next summer.
And so we are here yet again in September left with an all too familiar empty feeling in our stomachs...roll on next year!
