There is a partnership at play here! The GAA finished building an unmerciful monster in 2004. Ironically Laois and Westmeath were in the Leinster Final that year. It was a stretch to get a decent crowd for the First game and the place was half empty for the Replay on a Saturday afternoon. The GAA were not going to pay the Mortgage on the Building on minnows getting to provincial finals. Galway, Kerry and Cork no matter how well they were doing would only fill Croker in dribs and drabs. So another Monster had to be created to feed the monster. Ulster was the only anomaly, they will support and they will support in droves with success. Then there is Mayo, the other golden goose. Mayo fans have pumped some amount of money in League and Championship games since 2011. The Super 8's were invented to scrape the last shilling over the summer out of Mayo supporters. I was delighted when we failed to qualify last year. It guaranteed the almost failure of the money grabbing Super 8's. To be fair Mayo out of the Championship was the end of the medias interest in the Championship. It's got to a sad state that Mayo a burned out group were still the only hope for anything other than another Dublin All Ireland.
So we are where we are. The Dubs are unstoppable. Helped with funding, hard work and dedication. It's not their fault they get so much funding, have home games at a canter and enjoy every advantage. Their fans suffered from 1983 to 2011 with only one All Ireland. Many of the Dublin lads here began to watch football during this era. Loads of near misses, great players, good teams getting to the business end and being mocked and ridiculed to coming short at the top table. Now the tables have turned. The smug Kerry man looks vulnerable and talk of Kerry rebuilding with Dublin on the verge of 5 in a row must be frightening for them (Kerry). This is not Tyrone which were a problem more than a decade ago for Kerrys mantle. This Dublin team is rejuvenating itself. Talk of players like Flynn, Brogan and O'Gara retiring - and who will replace them? Are Laughable. They are already replaced.
Anyway, money has made a difference. How can it not? But don't expect Dublin to apologise for this. No more than you can expect a Mayo man to apologise to a Leitrim man for his county having a bigger population. Dublin were given the hand out used it properly. Now to be fair when you get so much money, you are bound to do something right.
The GAA have now ended up with one of the most dominant evolving Champions the game has ever seen. There is no quick fix to this. Changing rules, tinkering with ideas on the pitch only worsens what we already have and provides a sort of Red Herring to the real problems.
So what of the average fans? In my case the Season ticket is gone. I felt it hypocritical paying into something that disgusted me. Club is always there, thank god. And especially, underage Club! The gas thing is the bubble has not burst in Mayo. There is still (false) hope! Everybody still goes, still talks about the new players coming through and still thinks there is one last fight in this group. No one talks of Parsons injury, that this team will be two years older since the 2017 final, that we have not won a provincial final in 3 years, that we are have a groups of lads with loads of mileage, injuries and bad experience. No body sees the huge money going into Dublin football. The average Joe soap Mayo supporter does not have a clue of this! And you wonder how the average Dub should know. God only knows what other counties think?
