Who is the most bitter after Dubs do 5 in a row

[Rossfan]

Apart from Dublin GAA circles (naturally enough) and the Croke Park hierarchy there's little interest and certainly no excitement about the Final or the 5 in a row.
It's just all so predictable and inevitable like if  Real Madrid were in the Irish Soccer League.
The rest of us are getting on with Club championships while Co Boards are trying to come up with more and ever more fundraising initiatives to try and pay for their inter Co teams and managers.
They have just about enough time and energy left for the mundane tasks of administering GAA affairs in the County.

[TheGreatest]

Good piece by McStay. Himself and Canavan are the only ex players so far (that I've heard) to sort of tell it as it is.

He says in his piece that it's no coincidence that Kerry didn't score in the last 15 minutes, any other opposition team rarely scores against them in the last 15 in the championship.

Wrong, Canavan said teams must match Dublin off the field, the template for what they do off the field must be followed and then discussed Culllen coming from Leinster Rugby to Dublin, but the opposite happened in Tyrone, he is calling from more of a professional approach at board level, and from what i seen a lot of people agree with him.

[MC]

In fairness to Mc Stay he has been making these points for the last number of years.
He was frustrated with Roscommon because of the glass ceiling imposed with funding, travelling, etc - although its a bit of a misnomer to call it glass - its not that breakable!

All the predictions on Dublin domination, which started many years ago and seemed to have been largely ignored, have now come to pass.
Up until now the other top teams and the fans have traded on hope - even the glimmers of it - that has kept attendances relatively buoyant, but as that hope dies so will attendances and viewers and interest.

I think the GAA do recognise the problem but I think a large contingent are enjoying seeing Dublin win, given their history - they may even be delusional enough to feel part of it.
Historically, the GAA has been a slow reactive organisation with little imagination to resolve problems - so there will not be any change any time soon.

[Lar Naparka]

Apart from Dublin GAA circles (naturally enough) and the Croke Park hierarchy there's little interest and certainly no excitement about the Final or the 5 in a row.
It's just all so predictable and inevitable like if  Real Madrid were in the Irish Soccer League.
The rest of us are getting on with Club championships while Co Boards are trying to come up with more and ever more fundraising initiatives to try and pay for their inter Co teams and managers.
They have just about enough time and energy left for the mundane tasks of administering GAA affairs in the County.

Funny you say that...
I mentioned on the AI thread on Saturday morning that I never saw such little interest in the final here in my part of Dublin and as far as I could see, the same could be said about the entire city.
Three were far fewer flags hanging out of windows and very little bunting strung up either. Most of the decorations anyway were now new- leftovers from other years.
A local barman told me that there were less than a dozen punters in the pub at closing time Saturday night and every one of them was a regular anyway.
He had a good crowd for the game and he sold a fair amount of drink but the place was back to normal by 9 o'clock. In recent years it would be well after one before the pub would be cleared and he'd have sold more than twice as much.
Maybe the whole goddamn lot of them are saving up for the fix for six.

[seafoid]

A history of insanity intruding on the sane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f8JI9R5Suo

[Hound]

Apart from Dublin GAA circles (naturally enough) and the Croke Park hierarchy there's little interest and certainly no excitement about the Final or the 5 in a row.
It's just all so predictable and inevitable like if  Real Madrid were in the Irish Soccer League.
The rest of us are getting on with Club championships while Co Boards are trying to come up with more and ever more fundraising initiatives to try and pay for their inter Co teams and managers.
They have just about enough time and energy left for the mundane tasks of administering GAA affairs in the County.

Funny you say that...
I mentioned on the AI thread on Saturday morning that I never saw such little interest in the final here in my part of Dublin and as far as I could see, the same could be said about the entire city.
Three were far fewer flags hanging out of windows and very little bunting strung up either. Most of the decorations anyway were now new- leftovers from other years.
A local barman told me that there were less than a dozen punters in the pub at closing time Saturday night and every one of them was a regular anyway.
He had a good crowd for the game and he sold a fair amount of drink but the place was back to normal by 9 o'clock. In recent years it would be well after one before the pub would be cleared and he'd have sold more than twice as much.
Maybe the whole goddamn lot of them are saving up for the fix for six.

Well as you know, Dublin is not a GAA town, but there are GAA areas.

After pinting in the city centre for a few hours I got back to my local at about 11pm on Saturday and the place was absolutely rocking. Pub next door the very same and I'd guess the other 3 pubs in the village were a similar story. This was our biggest and most celebrated AI since 2011. And yes there are many many people living n Dublin who couldnt give a flying F.

[TheGreatest]

Apart from Dublin GAA circles (naturally enough) and the Croke Park hierarchy there's little interest and certainly no excitement about the Final or the 5 in a row.
It's just all so predictable and inevitable like if  Real Madrid were in the Irish Soccer League.
The rest of us are getting on with Club championships while Co Boards are trying to come up with more and ever more fundraising initiatives to try and pay for their inter Co teams and managers.
They have just about enough time and energy left for the mundane tasks of administering GAA affairs in the County.

Funny you say that...
I mentioned on the AI thread on Saturday morning that I never saw such little interest in the final here in my part of Dublin and as far as I could see, the same could be said about the entire city.
Three were far fewer flags hanging out of windows and very little bunting strung up either. Most of the decorations anyway were now new- leftovers from other years.
A local barman told me that there were less than a dozen punters in the pub at closing time Saturday night and every one of them was a regular anyway.
He had a good crowd for the game and he sold a fair amount of drink but the place was back to normal by 9 o'clock. In recent years it would be well after one before the pub would be cleared and he'd have sold more than twice as much.
Maybe the whole goddamn lot of them are saving up for the fix for six.

Dublin city was hopping saturday night, every pub packed that i could see. Best atmosphere since 2011.

Flagging and bunting is not for everyone and not everyone living in Dublin is a Dub or is a Dub who supports Dublin GAA.

[Hound]

McStay's a waffler. When he's making a point that might be contentious, he doesn't have the gumption to make it himself, he puts the credit/blame on someone else, like Whelan and Canavan above. 

McStay was on one of the preview podcasts before the Mayo v Donegal game. Someone else suggested match-ups for Mayo defenders to pick up the Donegal forwards. McStay added a couple of comments to support the suggested match-ups. Then the presenter said to him, "what about the match-ups down the other end?". McStay himmmed and hawwed for a couple of seconds, then said "ah, I wouldn't know enough about the Donegal defenders". 

Like FFS. Not only a paid analyst, but he's just out of being an intercounty manager!!

Overall, it was a strange evening. An All-Ireland final on a Sunday at half-past three is a national occasion. It is a ceremony that dominates the day. A replay is different. Saturday night at six o'clock: the world is getting ready to go out on the town. There was no minor match, no crowd gathering in the stadium and the overall sense of the evening was: this very important game needs a resolution. But the sense of occasion was absent. So I have a strong, strong sense that the All-Irelands should go back to September and that any replay should be on a Sunday. The scale of Dublin's achievement deserved a bigger occasion.

As someone who was at the game, the above from his article today is complete and utter nonsense. Drivel.

Ad hom, Hound
Sign of a weak argument/unwillingness to engage

Address the points, not McStay.

My post was about McStay! A bluffer.

If there were any other points in his rambling article, are you seriously suggesting I haven't addressed them already? Feckin countless times!

Here's the article that sums up my position. Have a read.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-shannon/the-kieran-shannon-interview-the-real-jackanory-behind-dublins-perfect-storm-942964.html

[An Fhairche Abu]

Whatever about the pub scene in Dublin post match, I've been at a good few All Ireland finals in both codes as neutral and as partisan supporter, there was no real sense of the enormity of what this Dublin team has achieved at the end of the match in terms of an emotional outpouring from their fans. Was a far better atmosphere in the ground during the drawn match when there was a real sense of jeopardy, once O'Brien made a hames of the Kerry goal chance there was no real sign of Kerry actually winning the match at all, I thought Dublin were very comfortable 2nd half. Some Dubs fans were streaming out of the ground as soon as the match finished, it's absolutely become routine to win Sam for them and whether this was the 5 in a row or not wasn't impacting on the overall atmosphere and excitement in my opinion.

There is a lot of talk about a golden Dublin generation but at the end of the day some of the absolute stalwarts from the start of this run have been phased out and the average starting age is coming down not going up. What other county could so easily cope with the loss of the prototypical modern footballer in Paul Flynn, an absolute Rolls Royce of a player. Likewise with Connolly, the Brogans, O'Sullivan, McMahon, etc. - we were told this was just a once off batch of talent, all have been or are in the process of being phased out without any impact on the team. O'Callaghan, Mannion, Howard, Scully, Murchan have slotted in and the likes of Archer are coming down the tracks as well. Cluxton remains imperious even at 37 and will be the most difficult to replace if he goes, the ongoing disgrace that is his lack of an All Star since 2013 - with all due respect to Beggan and Clarke, it is a bizarre situation - will surely be rectified this year. Even without Cluxton there, it will merely mean that Dublin probably just have an adequate to good keeper between the sticks - much like every other county.

Expecting Dublin to come back to the pack is a pipe dream, while I cannot imagine that they will win every single year, they will remain the major player in the sport for the foreseeable. It is interesting to hear Eamonn FitzMaurice say that for this Kerry team having not prevented the five in a row that:

"the roll of honour is a more important thing to protect and that becomes a challenge for the next decade".

It would have been unthinkable at the turn of this decade to envision Kerry's status at the top being challenged, I would venture that it is now inevitable that Dublin will overtake them at some point in the next (at the very latest) 25 years.

Even if Kerry win the next one or a few in the next 10 years, the range of winners and different final matchups that we saw in the 90's and 2000's seem like a very distant and almost quaint memory at this remove. What good is it to see the Dublin and Kerry duopoly continue to an even greater extent than it has already over the course of the last 130 odd years?
The lack of professionalism and rank bad planning in other counties is certainly something that not Dublin's fault, clearly not all counties are operating to the optimum level, some of the county boards are not fit for purpose, but even those organised well are battling with constraints and issues that will never impact Dublin, they will never be in a position to exploit the same advantages that Dublin have no matter what is done.
No one from Dublin is going to acknowledge that there is any problem with the current situation, that is just natural human bias, I'm 100% certain that if my own county were in Dublin's shoes at the moment I wouldn't give a toss what anyone outside of the county thought either.
Dublin have organised themselves to the best of their ability but the GAA must know that it is an unsustainable situation if the current pattern continues, what will they do if the All Ireland series starts to resemble the Leinster football championship? I truly hope that a more balanced championship will return and that we will see other counties getting to and winning All Ireland's but it is only a hope, if the GAA are reliant on the same thing, good luck to them.

[BennyCake]

Last para by McStay sums it up well.
GAA HQ unleashed the Monster. It's up to the other 31 to force them to do something about it.

Yeah like they did when they approved of Dublin getting 2 Super 8 games at Croke Park?

[seafoid]

McStay's a waffler. When he's making a point that might be contentious, he doesn't have the gumption to make it himself, he puts the credit/blame on someone else, like Whelan and Canavan above. 

McStay was on one of the preview podcasts before the Mayo v Donegal game. Someone else suggested match-ups for Mayo defenders to pick up the Donegal forwards. McStay added a couple of comments to support the suggested match-ups. Then the presenter said to him, "what about the match-ups down the other end?". McStay himmmed and hawwed for a couple of seconds, then said "ah, I wouldn't know enough about the Donegal defenders". 

Like FFS. Not only a paid analyst, but he's just out of being an intercounty manager!!

Overall, it was a strange evening. An All-Ireland final on a Sunday at half-past three is a national occasion. It is a ceremony that dominates the day. A replay is different. Saturday night at six o'clock: the world is getting ready to go out on the town. There was no minor match, no crowd gathering in the stadium and the overall sense of the evening was: this very important game needs a resolution. But the sense of occasion was absent. So I have a strong, strong sense that the All-Irelands should go back to September and that any replay should be on a Sunday. The scale of Dublin's achievement deserved a bigger occasion.

As someone who was at the game, the above from his article today is complete and utter nonsense. Drivel.

Ad hom, Hound
Sign of a weak argument/unwillingness to engage

Address the points, not McStay.

My post was about McStay! A bluffer.

If there were any other points in his rambling article, are you seriously suggesting I haven't addressed them already? Feckin countless times!

Here's the article that sums up my position. Have a read.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-shannon/the-kieran-shannon-interview-the-real-jackanory-behind-dublins-perfect-storm-942964.html

You're spoofing
Again

[joemamas]

McStay's a waffler. When he's making a point that might be contentious, he doesn't have the gumption to make it himself, he puts the credit/blame on someone else, like Whelan and Canavan above. 

McStay was on one of the preview podcasts before the Mayo v Donegal game. Someone else suggested match-ups for Mayo defenders to pick up the Donegal forwards. McStay added a couple of comments to support the suggested match-ups. Then the presenter said to him, "what about the match-ups down the other end?". McStay himmmed and hawwed for a couple of seconds, then said "ah, I wouldn't know enough about the Donegal defenders". 

Like FFS. Not only a paid analyst, but he's just out of being an intercounty manager!!

Overall, it was a strange evening. An All-Ireland final on a Sunday at half-past three is a national occasion. It is a ceremony that dominates the day. A replay is different. Saturday night at six o'clock: the world is getting ready to go out on the town. There was no minor match, no crowd gathering in the stadium and the overall sense of the evening was: this very important game needs a resolution. But the sense of occasion was absent. So I have a strong, strong sense that the All-Irelands should go back to September and that any replay should be on a Sunday. The scale of Dublin's achievement deserved a bigger occasion.

As someone who was at the game, the above from his article today is complete and utter nonsense. Drivel.

Ad hom, Hound
Sign of a weak argument/unwillingness to engage

Address the points, not McStay.

My post was about McStay! A bluffer.

If there were any other points in his rambling article, are you seriously suggesting I haven't addressed them already? Feckin countless times!

Here's the article that sums up my position. Have a read.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-shannon/the-kieran-shannon-interview-the-real-jackanory-behind-dublins-perfect-storm-942964.html
[/quote

Didnt have time to read full article, but this paragraph stood out.

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HOME»SPORT»COLUMNISTS»KIERAN SHANNON
The Kieran Shannon Interview: The real jackanory behind Dublin's perfect stormThe Kieran Shannon Interview: The real jackanory behind Dublin's perfect storm
A young Dublin supporter celebrates after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Dublin and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin in 2018. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

By Kieran Shannon
Sports Correspondent

Follow @KieranShannon7
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Saturday, August 10, 2019 - 12:00 AM
You won't find them on the Hill today. They don't chant You Boys in Blue – though some of their children will. They don't enquire 'what's the jackanory', and they don't tweet vitriol any time whenever Dublin's funding is mentioned in the media. Because they're not Dubs. They're culchies, nordies, blow-ins.

Yet Dublin made them, and they've helped make Dublin, the dominant force in both the men's and women's game. Which probably makes them best placed to explain the phenomenon that is Dublin football. Because they're not one of the natives, they'll more readily acknowledge any inherent advantages unique to the capital, just as they can spot and appreciate something Dublin are doing that the rest of the country aren't.


Paraic McDonald gives both a smile and a name to the faceless acronym you keep hearing about: the GDO.

A native of Castleblaney reared on the heroics of Nudie Hughes and Eamonn McEneaney, he helped the Faughs to a further seven county championships and an Ulster club title before falling in with Kilmacud Crokes upon arriving in the big smoke in 1997 as one of the first batch of games development officers recruited from the country.

Over the decades he has served on multiple county underage coaching tickets, as well as operating out in Crokes where he is now their full-time coaching director.

Gregory McGonigle is someone else well versed in both Monaghan and Dublin football. Although he hails from Dungiven, he emerged as one of the leading coaches in the women's game by steering Monaghan to a couple of All-Ireland finals and a national league title.

He then took over a Dublin team that for three consecutive years had failed to get beyond the All-Ireland quarter-final round and duly led them to three straight finals, albeit all single-score defeats to Cork. Since passing the baton on to Mick Bohan, he has coached the Dublin minor ladies as well as a men's club team, St Maurs, featuring U20 starlet Ciaran Archer.


Kilmacud Crokes coaching director Paraic McDonald
Kilmacud Crokes coaching director Paraic McDonald
Philip McElwee is another Derry man who knows the quiet fields of north county Dublin. He's been based there 40 years now, ever since coming straight out of the Ranch training college in Belfast. For six years he'd continuously traverse the border to keep playing county football for Derry before the hassle of it wore him down.

As he was living in Drumcondra, he and his kids would gravitate to Na Fianna where he'd manage the club to minor county titles, piquing the interest and respect of one of the club's most famous sons. After a 15-year senior inter-county career, Dessie Farrell was looking to give something back to the blue jersey and for someone to help him coaching a Dublin U14 development squad featuring the likes of Ciaran Kilkenny and Jack McCaffrey.

Over the years they'd win All Ireland minor and U21 finals together, Farrell as manager and McElwee as one of his trusted selectors. McElwee then managed the Na Fianna seniors for two years before stepping aside last autumn due to a restrictive hip, allowing Farrell to take the reins. "My time has now passed," he smiles, nearly peering over his glasses. "I've given it my shot."

He's seen it all in that time. He can remember Dublin in the rare auld losing days and he got to see how the perpetual winning blue machine was assembled, having been part of the pit crew himself.

So how was it put together? How has a sleeping, dormant giant awaken to terrorise and dominate all around them? Any chance they'll dose off again? We'll hand it over to our three friends from the country to tell you the real jackanory.

***

'A PERFECT STORM': THE COACHING OF THE COACHES

McELWEE: I think what happened was something of a perfect storm, if you will. A lot of clubs started to get their act together and put in a big shift in their nurseries and juvenile sections. They began to coach the coaches so the skills were being coached correctly and that there'd be a unity of purpose running right throughout the club. Then you had the GPOs coming and helping that.

Which happened first? The GPOs or the clubs upping their game? It was nearly the two of them coming together.

McDONALD: The summer of '95, I was playing football in Chicago for St Brendan's. Kieran McGeeney and Niall Buckley would have been playing with us as well. It was my first introduction to weight training – lugging timber all around the sites. Pat McEnaney was out there refereeing and had said to someone at home, 'This boy is flying.' 'Blaney hadn't won a championship in four years so I was flown home. We ended up winning the county and having a run in Ulster by which time Chicago was shutting down for the winter, so I was stuck at home, looking for something to do.

I started coaching in the local primary school, then got involved with the Monaghan county board through a FÁS scheme, and signed up to study Applied Sports Management in UCD. Near the end of the course a job as a games development officer came up with the Dublin county board.

There were eight or nine of us starting out. You'd have had the likes of [former Dublin ladies player] Christina McGinty, Niamh Leahy. Vinny Murphy and Paul Curran were just finishing up.

The job was to increase the numbers and improve the quality of players. I was based on the southside, covering nine clubs, the likes of St Jude's, Ballyboden, Thomas Davis, St Mark's, St Killian's, St Kevin's. It would have been difficult, trying to work the club-school relationship when you were trying to cover that many clubs. I'd say 65 percent of my time back then would have been in the schools whereas now it would be 75 percent with the club [Kilmacud].

Philip McElwee during his spell as Na Fianna manager
The big change came when the funding came through in 2004, 2005. All of a sudden you had 40-45 coaches. Instead of having to go around to 10 clubs, you only had to focus on one or two. These days I'd be employed by the club, not the county board, while Niall [Corcoran, Kilmacud's hurling officer] is funded through the GDO scheme, which is half-funded by the board and half-funded by the club."

Don't want to give a lazy analysis, but how the heck could any county compete with that.
seriously, even the most unrealistic Dublin supporter has to acknowledge the above, oe even Croke Park, then again maybe not !

[seafoid]

Whatever about the pub scene in Dublin post match, I've been at a good few All Ireland finals in both codes as neutral and as partisan supporter, there was no real sense of the enormity of what this Dublin team has achieved at the end of the match in terms of an emotional outpouring from their fans. Was a far better atmosphere in the ground during the drawn match when there was a real sense of jeopardy, once O'Brien made a hames of the Kerry goal chance there was no real sign of Kerry actually winning the match at all, I thought Dublin were very comfortable 2nd half. Some Dubs fans were streaming out of the ground as soon as the match finished, it's absolutely become routine to win Sam for them and whether this was the 5 in a row or not wasn't impacting on the overall atmosphere and excitement in my opinion.

There is a lot of talk about a golden Dublin generation but at the end of the day some of the absolute stalwarts from the start of this run have been phased out and the average starting age is coming down not going up. What other county could so easily cope with the loss of the prototypical modern footballer in Paul Flynn, an absolute Rolls Royce of a player. Likewise with Connolly, the Brogans, O'Sullivan, McMahon, etc. - we were told this was just a once off batch of talent, all have been or are in the process of being phased out without any impact on the team. O'Callaghan, Mannion, Howard, Scully, Murchan have slotted in and the likes of Archer are coming down the tracks as well. Cluxton remains imperious even at 37 and will be the most difficult to replace if he goes, the ongoing disgrace that is his lack of an All Star since 2013 - with all due respect to Beggan and Clarke, it is a bizarre situation - will surely be rectified this year. Even without Cluxton there, it will merely mean that Dublin probably just have an adequate to good keeper between the sticks - much like every other county.

Expecting Dublin to come back to the pack is a pipe dream, while I cannot imagine that they will win every single year, they will remain the major player in the sport for the foreseeable. It is interesting to hear Eamonn FitzMaurice say that for this Kerry team having not prevented the five in a row that:

"the roll of honour is a more important thing to protect and that becomes a challenge for the next decade".

It would have been unthinkable at the turn of this decade to envision Kerry's status at the top being challenged, I would venture that it is now inevitable that Dublin will overtake them at some point in the next (at the very latest) 25 years.

Even if Kerry win the next one or a few in the next 10 years, the range of winners and different final matchups that we saw in the 90's and 2000's seem like a very distant and almost quaint memory at this remove. What good is it to see the Dublin and Kerry duopoly continue to an even greater extent than it has already over the course of the last 130 odd years?
The lack of professionalism and rank bad planning in other counties is certainly something that not Dublin's fault, clearly not all counties are operating to the optimum level, some of the county boards are not fit for purpose, but even those organised well are battling with constraints and issues that will never impact Dublin, they will never be in a position to exploit the same advantages that Dublin have no matter what is done.
No one from Dublin is going to acknowledge that there is any problem with the current situation, that is just natural human bias, I'm 100% certain that if my own county were in Dublin's shoes at the moment I wouldn't give a toss what anyone outside of the county thought either.
Dublin have organised themselves to the best of their ability but the GAA must know that it is an unsustainable situation if the current pattern continues, what will they do if the All Ireland series starts to resemble the Leinster football championship? I truly hope that a more balanced championship will return and that we will see other counties getting to and winning All Ireland's but it is only a hope, if the GAA are reliant on the same thing, good luck to them.

It's not going to last another 25 years
The Dubs will be broken up way before then

[TheGreatest]

faWhatever about the pub scene in Dublin post match, I've been at a good few All Ireland finals in both codes as neutral and as partisan supporter, there was no real sense of the enormity of what this Dublin team has achieved at the end of the match in terms of an emotional outpouring from their ns. Was a far better atmosphere in the ground during the drawn match when there was a real sense of jeopardy, once O'Brien made a hames of the Kerry goal chance there was no real sign of Kerry actually winning the match at all, I thought Dublin were very comfortable 2nd half. Some Dubs fans were streaming out of the ground as soon as the match finished, it's absolutely become routine to win Sam for them and whether this was the 5 in a row or not wasn't impacting on the overall atmosphere and excitement in my opinion.

There is a lot of talk about a golden Dublin generation but at the end of the day some of the absolute stalwarts from the start of this run have been phased out and the average starting age is coming down not going up. What other county could so easily cope with the loss of the prototypical modern footballer in Paul Flynn, an absolute Rolls Royce of a player. Likewise with Connolly, the Brogans, O'Sullivan, McMahon, etc. - we were told this was just a once off batch of talent, all have been or are in the process of being phased out without any impact on the team. O'Callaghan, Mannion, Howard, Scully, Murchan have slotted in and the likes of Archer are coming down the tracks as well. Cluxton remains imperious even at 37 and will be the most difficult to replace if he goes, the ongoing disgrace that is his lack of an All Star since 2013 - with all due respect to Beggan and Clarke, it is a bizarre situation - will surely be rectified this year. Even without Cluxton there, it will merely mean that Dublin probably just have an adequate to good keeper between the sticks - much like every other county.

Expecting Dublin to come back to the pack is a pipe dream, while I cannot imagine that they will win every single year, they will remain the major player in the sport for the foreseeable. It is interesting to hear Eamonn FitzMaurice say that for this Kerry team having not prevented the five in a row that:

"the roll of honour is a more important thing to protect and that becomes a challenge for the next decade".

It would have been unthinkable at the turn of this decade to envision Kerry's status at the top being challenged, I would venture that it is now inevitable that Dublin will overtake them at some point in the next (at the very latest) 25 years.

Even if Kerry win the next one or a few in the next 10 years, the range of winners and different final matchups that we saw in the 90's and 2000's seem like a very distant and almost quaint memory at this remove. What good is it to see the Dublin and Kerry duopoly continue to an even greater extent than it has already over the course of the last 130 odd years?
The lack of professionalism and rank bad planning in other counties is certainly something that not Dublin's fault, clearly not all counties are operating to the optimum level, some of the county boards are not fit for purpose, but even those organised well are battling with constraints and issues that will never impact Dublin, they will never be in a position to exploit the same advantages that Dublin have no matter what is done.
No one from Dublin is going to acknowledge that there is any problem with the current situation, that is just natural human bias, I'm 100% certain that if my own county were in Dublin's shoes at the moment I wouldn't give a toss what anyone outside of the county thought either.
Dublin have organised themselves to the best of their ability but the GAA must know that it is an unsustainable situation if the current pattern continues, what will they do if the All Ireland series starts to resemble the Leinster football championship? I truly hope that a more balanced championship will return and that we will see other counties getting to and winning All Ireland's but it is only a hope, if the GAA are reliant on the same thing, good luck to them.

While i respect your opinion and your enititled to it, its wrong. As stated above, the sense of enormity was there and there was outpouring of it afterwards.

While i understand your not a Dub true diehard like myself, pershaps its difficult to understand it.

Sure even Jim Gavin did a lap of Croke Park for the first time after victory 

[joemamas]

McStay's a waffler. When he's making a point that might be contentious, he doesn't have the gumption to make it himself, he puts the credit/blame on someone else, like Whelan and Canavan above. 

McStay was on one of the preview podcasts before the Mayo v Donegal game. Someone else suggested match-ups for Mayo defenders to pick up the Donegal forwards. McStay added a couple of comments to support the suggested match-ups. Then the presenter said to him, "what about the match-ups down the other end?". McStay himmmed and hawwed for a couple of seconds, then said "ah, I wouldn't know enough about the Donegal defenders". 

Like FFS. Not only a paid analyst, but he's just out of being an intercounty manager!!

Overall, it was a strange evening. An All-Ireland final on a Sunday at half-past three is a national occasion. It is a ceremony that dominates the day. A replay is different. Saturday night at six o'clock: the world is getting ready to go out on the town. There was no minor match, no crowd gathering in the stadium and the overall sense of the evening was: this very important game needs a resolution. But the sense of occasion was absent. So I have a strong, strong sense that the All-Irelands should go back to September and that any replay should be on a Sunday. The scale of Dublin's achievement deserved a bigger occasion.

As someone who was at the game, the above from his article today is complete and utter nonsense. Drivel.

Ad hom, Hound
Sign of a weak argument/unwillingness to engage

Address the points, not McStay.

My post was about McStay! A bluffer.

If there were any other points in his rambling article, are you seriously suggesting I haven't addressed them already? Feckin countless times!

Here's the article that sums up my position. Have a read.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-shannon/the-kieran-shannon-interview-the-real-jackanory-behind-dublins-perfect-storm-942964.html

Philip McElwee during his spell as Na Fianna manager
The big change came when the funding came through in 2004, 2005. All of a sudden you had 40-45 coaches. Instead of having to go around to 10 clubs, you only had to focus on one or two. These days I'd be employed by the club, not the county board, while Niall [Corcoran, Kilmacud's hurling officer] is funded through the GDO scheme, which is half-funded by the board and half-funded by the club."

Don't want to give a lazy analysis, but how the heck could any county compete with that.
seriously, even the most unrealistic Dublin supporter has to acknowledge the above, or even Croke Park, then again maybe not !