When Dublin sneezes the GAA catch a cold

ON GAELIC GAMES:As is feared in the case of certain banks, Dublin's asset base - largely Leinster silverware - is over-valued

YOU DON'T want to get carried away with metaphors or even stark comparisons but is Dublin GAA walking the same line as the financial sector? We should enter the caveat it's only sport and the recession/depression has the capacity to wreck the lives of ordinary people and plunge them into a gloom, from which few can envisage early relief. But, still.

For many within the GAA, Dublin football occupies a status that makes it roughly as well-loved as bankers. There is frequently unseemly jubilation when the team fails, as it has to at various stages of the championship, and the inevitable rush to judgment that deems the side "over-hyped", a spurious threat to serious opposition whose capacities have been meretriciously championed by a media whose only interest is in the vast circulation possibilities of the capital.

For virtually the entirety of GAA history, being from Leinster has been an advantage when contesting All-Irelands in hurling or football but that hasn't been Dublin's experience this decade. The woes of the province have been well aired in terms of silverware and next season will be the 10th anniversary of the last time the Sam Maguire stayed in the east.

With the competitive standard lower than that required at the elite level, ruling Leinster is no longer a reliable indicator for further success. That impacts on a side like Dublin, lacking in confidence and unpractised in the sort of intensity that crackled through the All-Ireland football final, in a way that doesn't apply to Kilkenny hurlers, who are used to winning All-Irelands and prepare on that basis.

As is feared in the case of certain banks, Dublin's asset base - largely Leinster silverware - is overvalued.

At present, players are short on confidence and not surprisingly given the county's last All-Ireland is disappearing in the rear-view mirror with only the indefatigable Jason Sherlock - few players have paid as many dues for an All-Ireland, albeit in reverse - maintaining a link back to 1995.

So it wasn't too surprising that attempts were made to uncork some voodoo potions to address this shortfall. The fact of the "blue book's" existence shouldn't be a surprise - all teams look for psychological edges as part of their preparation. It is only now derided because Dublin had a bad season - it was after all just a training diary with a few lines of psychobabble thrown in. Normally we only get to hear about these stunts when they're being presented as part of an apparently inevitable narrative of success.

Joe Kernan flinging his career memorabilia around dressingrooms? Imagine if Ray Cosgrove hadn't hit the post and Dublin had availed of a second chance in that semi-final. Would we have heard about the half-time performance? Apart from, in the unlikely event of any leaks out of Armagh, in sniggering tones: "Well, apparently Kernan takes out this plaque . . ." The main problem with the blue book was it contained some cul-de-sac thinking. Referring to the 2006 fiasco in Omagh in self-affirming terms, as if the witless brawling constituted a rite-of-passage, was a strong indicator Dublin didn't appreciate exactly why counties like Tyrone are successful. Does anyone think Mickey Harte retains anxious memories of that day or saw in it any reason to fear Dublin the next time they met in a big match?

The Dublin sub-committee charged with finding Paul Caffrey's successor met last night with no immediate appointment on the horizon. They are anxious to get the job done properly rather than quickly but it's not going to be easy. Structurally the county isn't producing managers and any who pop up over the parapet have had their go at the job. For instance, the last four clubs to win a Leinster title were guided by managers who have all had an involvement with the county seniors.

The two most recent All-Ireland winners, St Vincent's this year and Kilmacud back in 1995, were managed by Mickey Whelan and Tommy Lyons, both of whom have also managed Dublin at different stages.

At underage matters are complicated - against a background of a lack of recent success - because under-21s have tended to come under the umbrella of senior management and that was the case when the county won its first All-Ireland in the grade five years ago. The minor grade is managed on a revolving basis by mentors, who take particular cohorts up the age levels and then move on after a year.

There is an obvious need for a development programme that produces managers as well as players. Kilkenny's remarkably successful system does this and Brian Cody is one of the few - if not the only - managers in charge of a county team who hasn't graduated through the ranks and that is simply because of his longevity. Dublin plainly can't wait until any such manager factory springs into production and yet the next appointment is crucial. The team is drifting away from that under-21 win and morale has to be repaired after a decade when, despite winning five Leinsters, the county has yet to defeat the champions of another province in five attempts.

Then there are the demands of dual players. Talented youngsters, who play both codes, have to spend half the amount of time on each that many of their competitors do. Hurling also uses up more resources than football because of the cost of equipment etc, etc. But as those charged with development systems in the county will privately acknowledge, coaches involved in hurling are more interested in learning. The take-up, for instance, of places at technical support seminars is far better among the hurling community than the football. And, crucially, the hurlers have more or less the same level of attainment at minor and under-21 level in recent years.

The banking analogy is most uncomfortably apt in the impact this has on the rest of the GAA. If Dublin slide off the graph the association as a whole suffers. Since Croke Park was relaunched in 2002 it has produced good revenues for the GAA and turned into a contributor to Central Council rather than a recipient of grants. Over those seven seasons there have been 21 intercounty programmes - outside of All-Ireland finals, which tend to attract capacity crowds anyway - that have filled the venue (taking anything over 75,000 as the benchmark). Dublin have appeared, either in stand-alone fixtures or sharing the bill, on 17 of those occasions. That's one county responsible for 80 per cent of the capacity attendances outside All-Irelands.

The county's least successful seasons this decade, 2003 and '04, returned a total of just two capacity attendances (neither of which featured Dublin) over the two championships.

Both the Leinster Council and Croke Park are careful not to make extravagant plans on the basis of recurring income but the fact remains Dublin have been generating a lot of revenue for the association by maintaining a presence in big matches.

So if Wall Street crashes Main Street can't avoid the falling debris.