League should not be trifled with

National Football League/Dublin v Cork: Tom Humphrieslooks at the importance a strong run in the spring campaign has on a county's fortunes in the championship

It's hard to tell when exactly the National League became a plate of cold chopped liver to Dublin management teams. Probably the gurus started pushing the plate away after the 1995 All-Ireland win. Nobody has shown an appetite since. Odd.

In the early Heffernan years the league was a prerequisite to summer success. Dublin reached the Division Two final in 1974 and played in the final in each of the next four seasons. Before that, the historic final appearance of 1955 and the win in 1958 were preceded by league final appearances.

Dublin didn't make the league final in 1963, but had been there in 1962.

The management team which won the 1995 All-Ireland and the two management teams which preceded it (Paddy Cullen's and Gerry McCaul's) each made a point of winning the league in their first season.

In 1995, though, understandably given what they had been through to win that All-Ireland, Dublin left the league be. Cork came to town a few weeks later and inflicted the worst defeat in four years on a Dublin side still exhausted and distracted from All-Ireland preparations and celebrations. The thread of the league was never really picked up again, and in recent years Dublin have been poor value for Parnell Park pass-holders.

This is baffling stuff, as the league, despite its old reputation, has increased its significance as a training ground for teams with solid summer ambitions. Indeed, since that 1995-1996 league, five All-Ireland winners have won the league in the spring. Kerry's last two All-Ireland wins came on the back of successful league campaigns, and the latter stages of the league have almost always thrown up a team which would enjoy a long summer.

Mayo were league semi-finalists in 1996 and went on to September that championship year. Kerry won both titles the following year. Cork beat Meath in a league semi-final in 1999, and the pair reprised that game (and reversed the result) in the All-Ireland final that year. Kerry reached a league semi-final and an All-Ireland final in 2000. Galway ran to both finals the following year.

In 2003, Tyrone and Armagh met in the All-Ireland final and avoided each other in the league semi-final stages. The following year, and in '06, Kerry won both titles. Tyrone were beaten league semi-finalists in '05.

For Jack O'Connor, during his reign in Kerry, the league was a mainstay of preparation. When O'Connor lists the nutritional benefits of the league it is hard not to think of the emaciated figures of Dublin and Cork.

"There's four main benefits as I'd see it. The first is confidence. Getting to the league play-offs means winning a few matches along the way against decent teams. That's a good habit to get into. Secondly, it keeps players focused for the summer. If you have a bad league and a gap between the finish of it and the summer, the players' concentration wanders.

"The best way to keep them focused and tuned in is to keep the big games coming up.

"Thirdly, it keeps the subs happy and the media happy and the county board happy, so it takes the pressure off a bit in terms of conspiracy theories and whispering campaigns.

"And lastly, winning is everything. It keeps the dogs away from the door. You want your team to be winning matches and just knowing what it takes to win matches."

O'Connor cites Kerry's 2005 league campaign in support of his final point. He reckons Kerry played better football in the 2005 league than they did in winning the competition the following year.

"We missed out though by a single point in scoring difference. When Armagh were playing Wexford in the final we were playing Kildare in a challenge that weekend. Of course you'd prefer to be getting the experience of another big game. We went through the championship to the All-Ireland that year, but we weren't as battle hardened come September."

The league brought other benefits to Kerry. Prolonged campaigns threw up new players or regenerated the careers of older ones. Tommy Griffin emerged for Kerry in 2004. William Kirby re-emerged.

"The more games you have the easier it is to find players and develop your squad. The better games they are the more you find out about the players. You don't want to be flaking a fella into a championship match in the middle of summer if you haven't seen him in a lot of league games. If you get a long run, you develop your patterns of play, you get the chance to see certain players and how they fit in, and you get the fellas believing in those patterns. That's all good."

The lesson appears to go unheeded in Dublin and Cork, whose residents would fancy themselves as contenders any given summer. Through all of this change in the league's usefulness, Dublin and Cork have snoozed obliviously. The counties met in the league final of 1999, when Cork won with a couple of points to spare, but they haven't troubled the headline writers in April or May since. Cork, perhaps, have an excuse: their club teams (well, Nemo) are perennially successful.

Nemo have won four Munster titles in that period (Dublin clubs have won three Leinsters, but none of the three clubs involved - Na Fianna, St Brigid's and Kilmacud - provided as much to the county set-up as Nemo do.) and Cork always have the significant, early- to mid-summer challenge of Kerry to build to.

Dublin operate as the biggest fish in the poorly stocked pond that is Leinster football. This season and last season, and possibly even the season before that, Dublin will have known that a Leinster win would not be enough to sate the hunger in the city. Their near misses of recent years can be attributed to a variety of reasons, but a lack of top-quality, testing football is a constant theme.

When it comes to those moments late in a game in Croke Park in August or September, Dublin seldom appear self-assured, let alone possessed of the swagger of old. What other counties draw from the rather more intense latter stages of the league, Dublin choose to ignore.

Tonight Dublin and Cork tussle in Parnell Park. Within the story of their parallel paths, through apathetic league form and disappointing summers, is the narrative of the odd dynamic which exists between the counties. The balance has shifted within this tale of two cities. In Kevin Heffernan's time as a player and a manager it was axiomatic that no Dublin team should ever lose to Cork.

Heffernan's belief was that Cork's arrogance would trip them up every time. His point was neatly proven in the All-Ireland semi-finals of 1974 and 1983. For the first, Heffernan turned a harmless incident (wherein Billy Morgan and Frank Cogan had teasingly waved the Sam Maguire at Jimmy Keaveney) into a blood insult. Dublin played maybe their best football of the era to win the subsequent game.

In 1983, having snatched a draw in Croke Park, Heffernan was happy to let Cork take all the pressure on to their shoulders when Cork insisted on staging the replay in Pairc Uí Chaoimh.

The old point about Cork's flakiness was reinforced memorably in the league quarter-final of 1987, when they declined to play extra time and went for the train instead, leaving Barney Rock to score into an empty net in Croke Park.

The genie was let out of the bottle at last in 1989 when Gerry McCaul's young side gave away two penalties to Cork (and John Cleary) to lose that year's All-Ireland semi-final.

Order was restored in 1995 when Jayo and co removed Cork from the championship, but since then the relationship between the counties has altered radically.

Cork no longer fear Dublin nor even derive too much joy from the routine of beating them. In the last 10 league games, Cork have won eight, drawn one and lost one.

The Dubs' management have made the changes commensurate with a side who are facing the humiliation of relegation to Division Three.

There is no pressure yet on Pillar Caffrey and his management team, and it is accepted that the jury will remain out until the summer campaign is over. Yet if Dublin were to come out of Donnycarney tonight with a league record of three defeats and a slightly fortuitous, scraped win over Limerick, this league will go into the file of evidence to be used against the defendants.

Cork are on an upswing following their display against Tyrone. Billy Morgan, hit with an eight-week suspension yesterday morning, will enjoy tonight's proceedings from a seat in the stand, something which might spare us all the sight of a confrontation with the equally combustible Paul Caffrey, whose studied patina of Zen-like calm has been cracked by runs-ins with John Morrisson and Ryan McMenamin on Dublin's last two visits to Croke Park.

Tonight is a crossroads. The entire feel of Cork's season will change with a win. Having Dublin's scalp hanging along with that of Tyrone from their belt will make them into contenders almost by definition.

A defeat would put them back on the seat of their pants.

Dublin are lurching towards serious trouble should they lose, building something decent if they win.

All sorts of dogs will be scratching at the door if Dublin are outplayed this evening. Each side have restored their premier midfielder for the occasion.

Come the summer, they may regret that the sense of urgency didn't come over them a little earlier.

CORK: P O'Shea; E Sexton, M Shields, K O'Connor; N O'Leary, G Spillane, A Lynch; D Kavanagh, N Murphy; S O'Brien, D Hurley, K McMahon; J Masters, D O'Connor, K O'Sullivan.

DUBLIN: S Cluxton; P Griffin, R McConnell, D Henry; B Cahill, B Cullen, G Brennan; D Magee, C Whelan; C Keaney, A Brogan, C Moran; T Quinn, J Sherlock, B Brogan.