The rise of the Kilmacud Crokes defensive trio – Rory O'Carroll, Cian O'Sullivan and Kevin Nolan – has been remarkably swift, writes KEITH DUGGAN

IN 1994, Kilmacud Crokes defeated St Vincent’s for the first time in the history of the Dublin championship. Afterwards, a few of the older club members were reportedly in tears. It wasn’t that the result was entirely unexpected: Kilmacud had won their first Dublin championship two years earlier. But still, they had slain the mythological beast of Dublin football.

Afterwards, Kilmacud claimed a second county title and played through the heart of winter before winning the All-Ireland club title in 1995. That September, Dublin won the All-Ireland senior championship but Kilmacud had no starting players on the team and John O’Callaghan was the only player to make the panel.

There were mitigating circumstances: by then, the Dublin team was locked into what had become a gruelling obsession with winning an All-Ireland they’d been threatening to take for the previous four years.

By 1995, the Dublin team was mature and virtually selected itself. The arrival of Jason Sherlock gave an aged team the injection of vitality and imagination required. And Sherlock was an Oliver Plunketts man, close to the geographical and spiritual heartland of Dublin GAA.

Although Kilmacud had been founded in 1959 and amalgamated with Crokes, the hurling club, in 1966, it was still writing itself into the narrative of Dublin football three decades later.

“We come from parish football,” said Tommy Lyons, the manager of Kilmacud then. “That’s the roots we have and we have made a club here in the south of the city that we can care about just as much.”

It would take Kilmacud until 2009 to win another All-Ireland title and it would take the Dublin football team until tomorrow just to return to an All-Ireland final.

And now, the landscape has changed. Rory O’Carroll, Cian O’Sullivan and Kevin Nolan were children when their suburban team made its first national statement. Now, the trio form half of the Dublin defensive unit.

But for the long-term injury struggles of Paul Griffin and Ross O’Carroll, Kilmacud could potentially provide five of Dublin’s starting unit. Craig Dias is another Kilmacud player who has pencilled his name into Pat Gilroy’s squad. In short, Kilmacud are handsomely represented.

The GAA provides a luminous and important reminder that as well as being the capital city, Dublin is also a necklace of independent villages. When the Sky Blue football team – the Dubs – are in full swagger, it can be easy to forget that. When the Hill is in full voice and the pale shirts are moving well, the tableau just seems like an elemental part of the city. It is easy to forget these teams are constructed just like any other county team. But for the Kilmacud Crokes club members on Sunday, the anticipation and pride of the occasion will be enhanced by their contribution to it.

Although Dublin’s breathtaking attacking display against Tyrone was rightly lauded as the turning point of their summer, the stability of their defence has been central to their progression to this final.

There was nothing inevitable about the ascension of the Kilmacud players but their rise has been remarkably assured.

“I joined the club in 2000 and they were playing under-13 at the time,” says Páraic McDonald, the former Castleblaney and Monaghan star. “Cian (O’Sullivan) would have always been earmarked for playing Gaelic football as his parents are Kerry people and big football people. Kevin (Nolan) was playing soccer at a high level with St Joseph’s of Sallynoggin and came into the club at about 13. I was involved with the Dublin development squad at under-15 and was minor manager in 2006 and both were involved on that team.

“So from an early age, they had the football talent and plus they were very easy to work with. They were enthusiastic and dedicated and interested. Rory (O’Carroll) was a bit of a late developer. I don’t think he played much football until he was 12 or 13. He was wing back on the team that won the Féile in 2003 and that team included Ian Madigan and Ian McKinley, who went on to play rugby.

“So Rory was not one of the stars of that team. But he played a lot of hurling too. When Kilmacud won the All-Ireland, he was thrown in at the deep end against Rhode. He marked Anton Sullivan, a minor at the time as well. It just grew from that. It has been meteoric for him since, yeah. He might have put on a couple of inches okay and is probably a bit taller than Ross now.

“It is a bit hazy because there is nothing that springs to mind: he was there and the next thing he was thrown on in the Leinster final and went from strength to strength.”

O’Carroll’s senior club debut coincided with a traumatic period for the defensive morale of the Dublin senior team.

In 2008, their All-Ireland ambitions were derailed in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Tyrone, when they were beaten by 3-14 to 1-8. That defeat brought the curtains down on Paul Caffrey’s term in charge.

A year later, Gilroy watched as Kerry posted 1-24 to Dublin’s 1-7 in the All-Ireland quarter-final, a searing lesson that prompted a rethink in personnel and approach. By last year’s semi-final against Cork, the defence had been rebuilt and looked steady.

Still, the collective breakdown of nerve or confidence against Cork cost them an All-Ireland final place and they blew a big lead against the same opposition in the league final this April. There were question marks aplenty coming into the championship.

“I think possibly they were conscious of what happened in the semi-final when they gave away frees through over exuberance,” says Paddy Kelly, Cork’s All-Star half forward. “So they didn’t want to give away silly frees so maybe they took that step back or didn’t put a hand in which enabled us to tag off scores that they wouldn’t give you if they were going flat out.

“I think they realised after the semi-final that they were naïve in their tackling and they over compensated in the league final.

“The three lads in the half-back line hold the shape and you rarely find them caught in the counter-attack now as well. Now, I know they can get scores as well. Cian O’Sullivan was corner back the last day but they are similar: they are tall, strong and athletic.

“The full-back line is slightly inexperienced but I think that they are good at holding their shape. Since the league final, they have been excellent. They were really good against Tyrone and did the job against Donegal.”

The caution that Dublin demonstrated against Donegal, when they left three players to shadow Donegal’s Colm McFadden, came in for some criticism. But it was merely in keeping with the policy which has been central to Dublin’s defence this summer. They held their line.

They do have attacking defenders – as witnessed in James McCarthy’s splendid Leinster final goal against Wexford – but the prevailing ethos is to mind the house.

Mark Duncan, a selector on the Crokes team that won the All-Ireland Club title in 2009, has watched the Kilmacud trio playing football since their underage days and reckons that concentrating on the fundamental business of defence suits them well.

“They are remarkably committed and driven people. The idea of the flamboyant Dublin footballer would not sit very well with Kevin Nolan or Cian O’Sullivan. That is not their personality. I think you can see that in the way that they play the game.”

O’Sullivan’s return to the team, after being absent since February was both smooth and timely. He was excellent against Tyrone and Donegal and is regarded as the player most likely to be tasked with the impossible assignment of shadowing Colm Cooper.

O’Carroll, too, came into the team despite being absent for much of the league. Páraic McDonald believes their ability to knuckle down and play to a system has been critical to that reintegration. He identifies Ger Brennan as the leader of the defensive unit and says the Kilmacud trio are happy to work on his command. “They are not the most vocal players you will come across. They just go about doing their job well. Ger would be the one barking orders and keeping them on their toes.”

The speed and accuracy with which Dublin transferred possession from defence to their score-getters caught Paddy Kelly’s eye and he highlights Brennan’s role in this.

“He has been around for four or five years there so he is a big influence. It is a fairly inexperienced side. But Brennan is an excellent ball player – he would almost be a kind of quarter-back there, which is the kind of role that he likes.

“Against Tyrone, they were excellent distributing ball from the half-back line – accurate ball from 50 or 60 yards which meant the Brogans had a lot of time on the ball.

“Distribution is probably Brennan’s great strength – his left foot is extremely accurate and he tends to use it a lot more than the short handpass, which catches teams out. So if they can get the ball quickly over the Kerry midfield and even half-back line, they will get scores.”

A Dublin-Kerry All-Ireland final reflects a prestige that is far greater than the reality of the rivalry. The nostalgia has been surprisingly – and perhaps consciously – muted in the build-up to the match.

But the mere sight of the colours mingling and the teams on parade will send GAA fans of a certain vintage rushing back to the 1970s and 1980s. But those games are nothing except hearsay and old video tapes.

For Rory O’Carroll and the other Kilmacud players, it is a brand new game and a new place. And for the club in general, the presence of O’Carroll is proof that the club has travelled a long way since that first win against St Vincent’s.

“That was a dam burst for many people in the club and a feeling that we had arrived,” Mark Duncan says.

“It was a bit of a breakthrough. Beating St Vincent’s now no longer has that emotional punch. There is a huge interest in Dublin playing in an All-Ireland final anyway but seeing your own players out there adds so much more to it.”