LEINSTER SFC DUBLIN v MEATH: KEITH DUGGANtalks to Ciarán Whelan, who is focused on getting to undiscovered country with Dublin, as he takes a break from his preparations

AS THE crowds strolled around the yachts moored in the Galway docks, it wasn’t long before people began to notice familiar faces in their midst. For a few moments, they stopped and stared in wonderment at how incredibly similar the Puma team yacht members looked to Kilkenny’s Henry Shefflin and Dublin’s Ciarán Whelan.

Slowly, the penny dropped that these were, in fact, the real McCoy. Whelan was among a group of players expected to light up this year’s championship who were guests of Puma and given a tour of the team boat.

The afternoon started out brightly, but darkened quickly and by the time that Whelan had turned his thoughts to another season wearing the sky blue colours of Dublin, it had begun to belt down. Whelan sheltered under an umbrella and chatted easily in the rain.

Earlier, he had shared a few laughs with Seán Cavanagh of Tyrone and it was to Dublin’s match against Tyrone last summer that his mind turned when he explained his reasons for giving it another year.

Whelan has become the figurehead of the post-’95 generation of Dublin footballers, which has meant that his more majestic contributions have garnered high praise but that he has also been fingered as Dublin’s main culprit on the days of aching August disappointment.

He has long stopped caring about the analysis and scrutiny – if he ever did in the first place – but he admits that it would have been difficult to finish his days with Dublin with the memory of that Tyrone match as his last experience.

“The manner of that defeat last year was hard to take. We have taken a few steps down the ladder. With the new management, we sat down and reviewed the match and spoke about it and put it to bed then. It was a freak kind of a day and they were fantastic. There wasn’t much that we could have done with it. We have tried to change things around.

“We felt going into last year’s game that we were prepared and we knew what Tyrone were about but they pulled a performance out of the blue that we had not expected.

“They had not been playing to that standard in the year and we got caught, I suppose. There is no other way to put it.”

Supreme in Leinster, Dublin have ultimately disappointed in what has become an openly hungry quest for an All-Ireland title. More than any team, they have come to represent the mass popularity of the modern All-Ireland championship and, for all their honesty and the excitement – and revenue – that they generate, they have come desperately close to returning to an All-Ireland final without making the breakthrough.

The appointment of Pat Gilroy as Dublin manager means the team is something of an unknown quantity going into this weekend’s derby against Meath, the first monster date of summer for Croke Park. There is a sense that Dublin will look and play differently and although Whelan is not about to cough up any company secrets, he agrees that there is the sense of a newly imagined Dublin team taking shape.

“There is a great competition and huge options there for the management and versatility among the players. There will be changes in the side this year, I would have thought; we can expect some debutants. It won’t be the Dublin team people have been used to for the last few years.

“We don’t have a set idea of who is going to start and that is a good thing. At midfield, Darren McGee was the club player of the championship. Ross (McConnell) has done fantastically well. Eamonn Fennell is up there.

“There is a lot of competition and that is a very healthy scenario to be in. You don’t want fellas in the comfort zone. Fellas know each other fairly well no matter what the partnership. It is great to have fellas bouncing off each other in training.”

Playing Meath means they have to get the alignment and game-plan right from the beginning. Dublin will be expected to win but, as Whelan points out, that favouritism doesn’t really matter.

“When in comes to Dublin-Meath complaceny doesn’t come into it. They are not about league form. They are about history. Those games always just come back to the last five minutes.”

As ever, the game will attract a huge crowd. For all the advantages of playing in front of a fervent blue army, there is surely some pressure to deliver as well. Whelan shrugs. Playing in front of a full house on the Jones’s Road is second nature to him now.

“ Some lads enjoy it and are used to it. It is the kind of arena that once you get comfortable in, it is very enjoyable. That to me is what intercounty football is about.”

It would be a disaster for Dublin to lose this match, particularly given their mediocre record in the qualifying series. All the focus will be on Dublin: a perfect situation for Meath, who are old stagers in their own right when it comes to these gala Sundays. As Whelan puts it: “whoever comes out of this match is going to gain great confidence.”

A good display will leave Dublin in fine fettle and odds-on to remain unbeaten in Leinster. Whelan feels that although the championship structure may need some fresh ideas, the provincial system ought to be acknowledged.

“There is an argument for changing the overall championship. But I would like to see the provincial system retained in some way. People forget that a Leinster championship would mean a hell of a lot for counties that have not won one in a while. The same is true across the provinces. There is a lot of history to these championships and to abandon them overnight would be a mistake.”

But no matter what way they dice the venerable old competition, it is still going to end up with two teams and an All-Ireland final.

That is the one date that has eluded Ciarán Whelan and it is probably the chief reason he will run out before the Hill 16 crowd again this Sunday.