It was like the first day of summer. Truly it had that sense of beginning about it. Dublin and Kildare contrived the best match of the season and presented it to the biggest GAA crowd to have gathered anywhere since back before the Beatles' first LP. Tom Humphries reports from Croke Park

The sun shone on the perfect green nap of Croke Park, the place tingled with electricity all afternoon long and Dublin brought a panache to the proceedings that seemed just right for Bastille Day.

In the end, Tommy Lyons' nascent Dublin team came away with a win which they deserved for the swashbuckling, energetic cut they brought to a fine game.

That style was best exemplified in the two goals they scored in front of the teeming Hill, both of them cheeky, skilful throwbacks to the great days when Dublin teams treated opposition team sheets like menus.

Coman Goggins did the climbing and the lifting, hoisting the silver on the Hogan Stand steps to mark Dublin's 44th provincial pennant. Seven years since a Dublin captain had to do this work and the novelty of it sent a shuddering thrill through the place. . .

A new manager, a young side, a simple game plan. As surely as you can see the blue flags hanging from houses and trailing from cars, you can feel the anticipation jangling through the city. Lyons' methods are straightforward and often ruthless and they came as a culture shock to some old hands, but success breeds its own disciples and yesterday Dublin emerged into the light with a brashness that the world will have to get used to.

Dublin began with just two players who were even born when the county broke through in 1974, Paul Curran was five then, Senan Connell was still in nappies and that thread gets ever more tenuous. No more former greats managing the team by right, the new stars come from the clubs that form the new powerhouses. Ballinteer, Brigids, Kilmacud, Lucan and Naomh Mearnog.

Perhaps it is as well that tradition doesn't burden them. Yesterday, they played like a side too busy for introspection. With Kildare suddenly panicked and spancilled by the introduction of Dessie Farrell and Jason Sherlock, the younger guns exacted punishment.

Alan Brogan, who carries the running lope of his father but who has quicker feet, scored the first goal with the verve of a man hurriedly carving his own legend, a sweet shot hit surprisingly with the outside of his foot and in off Enda Murphy's far post.

Who was Ronaldo we asked. Ray Cosgrove hit the second, in the manner as Colm O'Rourke pointed out on television of Dublin 1983, a low soccer style shot which bulged the rigging. And who was Joe McNally?

"The football we played today, yeah alright we were bad at times too, but in the good times we were fantastic," said Dublin manager Tommy Lyons afterwards.

"Young Brogan's goal was just awesome. Ray Cosgrove had the cheek and the swagger to do it when he had the half-chance. What does it mean? Well, it means that Dublin can't be out of the trophies for that long. Seven years is too long, way too long.

"The GAA needs Dublin. Dublin need the GAA. I hope the Leinster Council acknowledge the fact that Kildare and Dublin put 78,000 people into Croke Park today. Nobody else could do that but us."

Indeed. Kildare, a team supposedly in transition if not in decline, contributed handsomely too and their hope was sustained by the naievete which the Dublin defence brought to its business. Dublin were shredded at the back for a goal not long before half-time, a blow which brought on such a bout of jitteriness that all three of an otherwise exemplary Dublin full-forward line had wides in the next few minutes.

"My team were fabulous today," said Mick O Dwyer, "for a side that weren't given any chance. They came and they gave it everything and I thought they played well. We've no regrets."

In the second half, having clambered back on top, Dublin endured one of those slow-motion nightmares when Darren Magee's senses abandoned him for a moment and he handed the ball to Tadhg Fennin on the edge of his own square.

Kildare have had problems with attacking down through the last 10 years, but on a diet of chances like this they would have put together a three-in-a-row side. Dublin, two points up, were now one point down.

Ten minutes later, they were two points down. This was the end we have become used to imagining for Dublin sides, when the strut goes and the sweat starts. Steven Spielberg's latest movie depicts a time in the not very distant future when crimes can be predicted before they are committed.

That's nothing too radical for those who have watched Dublin football over the past few years. The team always found a way to lose, always connived a way to give away a goal, or against Kildare two goals, at a critical moment.

Yesterday, though, they outgrew their own doubts. Just about. Having had a goal disallowed with a couple of minutes left, they needed a fine save from Stephen Cluxton to stay alive when the seconds were slipping away.

At the end, they clambered on to the fencing at the Hill 16 end and looked like kids gazing at the place they grew up in. Croke Park, never more elegant or splendid than it looked yesterday, was a chaos of noise.

We came away reflecting that a year after Italia 90 seized Irish imaginations, Dublin and Meath seized them back again with their four-match epic.

This summer was reclaimed yesterday by a young Dublin team which not only has greatness in it, but which has a fine under-21 side pushing on behind it.

The first day of summer, the thrill of the grass and nothing but blue skies ahead. The smart money says the last day of summer will be Dublin and Galway in Croke Park and, if not, the road to that ending will be worth following anyway.