It is strange how history repeats itself. In 2010, Meath beat Dublin and ended up playing Louth in the provincial final.
Last Sunday’s Leinster football championship semi-final in Portlaoise was attended by just 10,126, which speaks volumes for a drop-off in expectations.
Meath were coming off a league campaign that saw genuine promotion ambitions fizzle out in the last two fixtures. They had been run off the pitch in Navan by Monaghan and took a graphic walloping from Louth in the latter’s temporary home in Inniskeen.
It’s true that they showed some mettle in their championship opener to survive a terrible first half against Offaly and win. But the bounce from that was widely considered not high enough to clear the next barrier.
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The Dubs, however, were not on the crest of a wave either. Their own league form was uninspiring and culminated in a thrashing from Tyrone in Omagh before moving on to an uncomfortably tight tussle with Wicklow, albeit one that ended in a nine-point win. Seven years previously, the counties’ most recent encounter ended in a 23-point landslide.
Failure to put up big scores in Leinster has previously been a negative indicator for Dublin. In 2021, their hopes of winning a seventh All-Ireland in a row were ended by Mayo. However, the signs were there ever since they beat Wexford by a comparatively tight eight points in their first championship match of that season.
They went on to win the provincial title without recording a double-digit margin in any of their three matches.
The last time the Dubs didn’t win the Leinster championship, 15 years ago, Meath stopped them. A crowd of just over 60,000 turned up at Croke Park for that provincial semi-final in 2010. At the time, the attendance was considered a bit on the low side.
Dublin’s dominance of Leinster has been unprecedented, but, like all empires, it had to come to an end. Few would have predicted a fall in Leinster this year, but there was very little optimism around the capital that the team could mount a challenge for the All-Ireland.
That level of expectation hasn’t lifted in advance of the All-Ireland series.
Dublin have claimed just one win in their last four championship matches – the unimpressive victory against Wicklow on April 13th.
There comes a stage for every all-conquering county when the peak has been reached and a clear decline sets in. Realistic Dublin followers have known for some time that their team won’t be challenging for Sam Maguire this year.
The scale of player losses, even since last year – James McCarthy and Michael Fitzsimons had cabinets full of All-Ireland medals - made rebuilding unavoidable. Throw in the departures of Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion and Brian Fenton and it is clear that this is a severely weakened unit.
What happened in Portlaoise last Sunday did not have the appearance of a difficult but important lesson for an emerging team. In the 2010 defeat by Meath, Dublin were overhauling their defensive structures and everything went haywire with the concession of five goals. The defence did, however, improve.
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Fifteen players who were involved that day were back just over a year later winning Dublin’s first All-Ireland in 16 years.
“Dublin’s suspect lease of life, which they had enjoyed ever since their great side fragmented, finally expired in front of an estimated 25,000 spectators in Tullamore when their resources dried up and Laois were only too well equipped to take advantage.”
These were the opening lines of the late Pat Roche’s report in The Irish Times when Dublin lost a Leinster championship semi-final against Laois in 1981.
Again – and it wouldn’t have been necessarily foreseeable at the time – seven of that team played two years later when the county won the chaotic 1983 All-Ireland final.
Maybe it’s simply recency bias, but it’s hard to see too many of last Sunday’s line-up featuring in future All-Ireland successes.
Last weekend’s defeat makes Dublin’s All-Ireland title of two years ago all the more impressive.
From the moment Dessie Farrell confirmed in September 2022 that Mannion and McCaffrey were rejoining the panel, it was clear that one last All-Ireland job was on everyone’s minds. That view hardened when Stephen Cluxton returned between the posts.
McCarthy was captain and getting him up the steps in late July became 2023’s motif.
That was duly accomplished in the most appropriate of ways, beating defending champions Kerry in the final. There were the pictures of Cluxton, McCarthy and Fitzsimons with their nine medals each.
Historic levels of achievement by outstanding cohorts of players underpin most record breaking.
It is rarely a positive, though, for the next generation. After winning eight All-Irelands in 12 seasons under Mick O’Dwyer, Kerry went 11 years before lifting Sam Maguire again. Brian Cody’s Kilkenny mopped up 11 hurling All-Irelands in 16 years. It has been a decade since the Cats last lifted Liam MacCarthy.
Dublin, under three managers, won nine football All-Irelands in 13 seasons. A trove of special memories for the Hill, but it remains to be seen how long they will be waiting for the next one.
