Dublin still standing as smoke clears

The aesthetics of football were given the day off at Croke Park yesterday. Admittedly, the 30,128 supporters (give or take the odd neutral) of Dublin and Offaly wouldn't have rejected a win on the grounds that it wasn't a beautiful win. But even so.

The game made up in visceral excitement for what it lacked in style and when the smoke cleared Dublin had the win they desperately needed. The last time the county won a seriously competitive match they were presented with the Sam Maguire afterwards.

Yet Offaly could so easily have slid in at the death when Ciaran McManus had ball in hand in the square with Dublin two points up on the scoreboard and 75 minutes up on the clock. He failed to connect properly and now joins his team mates in preparing for next Saturday's second-round qualifier against Louth.

Dublin captain Des Farrell celebrates his 10th championship this year. Enough time for clear perspective. He knows that the uglier it was, the happier the victory. "It wasn't pretty football. But we've played pretty football in the past and lost. It's a long time since we had a hard-fought game and won it."

He had played a significant role in the victory. It took Dublin all of 17 minutes to open their scoring and it was Farrell who did so. In a 10-minute spell he galvanised his side with a couple of bumper-car drives through the heart of Offaly's defence - both of which yielded points.

The lack of prettiness was encapsulated for us all in the 59th minute when Vinny Murphy decided to shake things up when taking the field as a substitute. He nearly triggered a melee and was lucky not have been shown a card. In his wake, waddling onto the field came a Dublin supporter, no prettier than the football - or than Vinny for that matter.

He eluded the game attempts of Dublin county secretary John Costello to capture and remove him. Then, inspired by the ugliness of it all, the intruder removed his shirt before belatedly being led away. Where, we wondered, were all the security people?

Well, a couple of them were sitting in front of the press area leaping around and harrooing every time Dublin scored.

Meanwhile, Des Farrell warms to his low-key theme. He fields a question about how far Dublin could go with this unpretty victory under their belt.

"It's still debatable, isn't it. At least we've gone the right way about it but we're still no further than we were last year. But it's good to be back at that stage."