Blue kids on the block

Forgive me if I’m getting ahead of myself, but the Double is still a live prospect — Dublin have advanced to Leinster finals in both codes. The hurlers, having dispatched a shockingly off-colour Galway side without undue fuss, now prepare to take on the might of Kilkenny.

There is still a chill of apprehension (verging on raw terror) at hearing the names ‘Dublin’ and ‘Kilkenny’ mentioned in the same sentence, and the prospect of a humiliating mutilation cannot be entirely ruled out. The first ten minutes will tell us much. The worst-case mental vision is of Henry Shefflin burying two goals in as many minutes before the crowd has even had time to draw breath, and the remaining hour or so turning into an unseemly bloodbath, with the remorseless, merciless Cats racking up something like 8-24, while our lads collapse from heat exhaustion and wonder why they bothered.
It won’t be that bad: on all known recent form, there is now no reason why they can’t go toe-to-toe as relative equals. Indeed, having more or less murdered the Cats in the League final, there is a case for questioning the Dubs’ status as underdogs, though it might be timely to remind ourselves that Kilkenny have lost precisely one Championship game in the last five years, still have the ability to bury teams alive and throw away the spade in devastating five-minute blasts, have a point to prove after the League beasting, and have Brian Cody on the sidelines barking them on in magnificently demented fashion.
Dublin don’t appear to have all that many goals in them, but will fire over points fast and frequently from all angles, and thoroughly make the most of whatever frees are gifted them by an occasionally over-zealous Cats defence. Apart from a slight tendency towards wild shooting, the biggest alarm bell that keeps on ringing from a Dub perspective is the way we conceded two soft goals to Galway: such laxity will be ruthlessly exploited by Shefflin and co., given half a sniff. Foul Play will play this one cautiously and nominate Kilkenny to win by four points, pulling away in the last ten minutes after being matched stride-for-stride for the first hour.
As for the Dub footballers, they too have a Leinster final to negotiate. This one is not quite the Everest that faces their hurling counterparts: the last time Wexford made it to the Leinster final three summers ago, they probably regretted it, Dublin eviscerating them by an obscene 23-point margin. I missed that particular match in favour of a jaunt to the museums and art galleries of Amsterdam, though regular text updates ensured the afternoon was even more exceedingly pleasant than it otherwise would have been.
Dublin’s Leinster semi against Kildare was probably the best football match of the summer to date. Victory was secured in the last minute by a trusty free from Bernard Brogan, provoking howls of apoplectic outrage from those of a Kildare persuasion, who felt that Andriu Mac Lochlainn’s visible impeding of Brogan’s movement ought to have been overlooked on the basis that it was subtle, the sort of thing lots of referees turn a blind eye to, and that it was the last minute of the match.
In fact, it wasn’t just Kildare folk who seemed to share this opinion. There has long been a suspicion that, where Dublin are concerned, impartiality among many inhabitants of the other 31 counties tends to be in short supply, and Kevin McStay’s performance in the RTE commentary booth alongside Marty Morrissey spoke for itself. As Kildare mounted what threatened to become an impressive Lazarus-style comeback in the closing ten minutes, McStay’s professional objectivity wavered. Eamonn Callaghan’s equalising point was greeted with a gleefully hearty chuckle which bordered on a cackle — words obviously weren’t enough — only to be followed within seconds by the awarding of the fateful free-kick, provoking McStay to emit an agonised, strangulated yelp of ‘AHHHH NOOOO!!’
Having looked again and again at the incident, as impartially as possible, it was undoubtedly a free-kick according to the letter of the law. This is not to say that most referees would have given a free in that situation, particularly with the scores level in stoppage time and a money-spinning replay on the cards, but rules are rules. If you start being selectively flexible with them on the basis that ‘a draw seemed a fair result’ or ‘Pat McEnaney would have let that one go’ or ‘sure the feckin’ Dubs have enough of an advantage playing at home’, you begin to descend a very slippery slope.
Still, I enjoyed McStay’s performance immensely, as a markedly more honest and blatant expression of the ABD (Anyone But Dublin) sentiment that simmers just below the surface of a remarkable amount of GAA analysis. As a Dubliner, none of this offends me the way it might be supposed: au contraire, I find it hilarious, if more than a little pathetic. With the heinous injustice of The Free That Never Should Have Been now apparently ranking alongside Thierry Henry’s handball in the catalogue of great sporting atrocities, ‘neutrals’ from the other 31 counties will need no further encouragement to nail their colours to the Wexford mast on the big day.
I don’t see this one as anything like the foregone conclusion the bookies have priced it up as. Wexford are scoring for fun at the minute, and Dublin seem to need at least a 50-point lead before we can be trusted with it. But I reckon we’ll have enough in the tank to claim a sixth Leinster title in seven years. In sport, if you’re hated and envied by the rest, it usually means you’re doing something right. Go forth and conquer, lads.