It’s always worthwhile not to get carried away in the heat of the moment and in the past caution was always advisable in the wake of football league finals but the statistics of the modern era tell us that 50 per cent of April winners are back lifting the big pot in September.
What is most instructive about the weekend just past is the fact that the Division One final was played so much on its merits. No-one suggested on the run-in that it was "only the league" and in the aftermath reactions from both Kerry and Dublin – apart from the standard Jim Gavin etiquette – weren't inclined to down-play the significance of the outcome.
There’s still plenty of football to be played before the All-Ireland series kicks in, in just over three months but common perceptions of Dublin and Kerry were undoubtedly affected.
What had been seen as one of Kerry’s strengths – the revived form of their veterans – became a weakness, as the team struggled to stay with the pace that Dublin set throughout. For the first hour or so the scoreboard suggested an even enough contest but in a way that was more misleading than the 11-point difference at the end.
Clearly superior
Another of Kerry’s strengths coming into the match would have been seen as their centrefield but if Dublin did better than expected there last September they were clearly superior this time.
Brian Fenton
looked a serious proposition in only his second season, having tucked away the Man of the Match in last year’s All-Ireland and an All Star in his rookie year.
His emergence underlines one of the Dublin strengths that Kerry can only envy and that is the constant replenishment of the team. For instance four of the attack that finished the 2008 All-Ireland final (eight years and two managers back) also finished Sunday's match – Cooper, O'Sullivan, Donaghy and Sheehan – whereas another two, Donnchadh Walsh and Tommy Walsh were involved in both match-day panels.
By contrast half of the Dublin attack – Mannion, Kilkenny and Rock – weren’t even in the panel for the 2011 All-Ireland final. There is also a sense of two teams in different phases of development.
When the counties met in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final three of Dublin’s most prominent players were still under-21s and in their first year with the seniors, Ciarán Kilkenny, Paul Mannion and Jack McCaffrey. All three were replaced in the final against Mayo – Mannion because of injury.
McCaffrey isn’t playing this season but is the current Footballer of the Year, Kilkenny is an All Star and Mannion has returned from working abroad and cuts a more formidable physical specimen. It’s hard to imagine having to replace any of them for under-performance in a big match now.
It's a conundrum for Eamonn Fitzmaurice because it's unlikely he can make wholesale changes in the coming months and even if it's likely that the team will absorb the lessons of Sunday and improve in the months ahead with significant players to return, can they perform at greater pace?
There will also be a folk memory in Kerry about how a generation of players was lost at the end of the golden years of Mick O’Dwyer’s great team and the scale of the rebuilding meant that the county went 11 barren years without an All-Ireland.
In this case there is plenty of talent coming through from two All-Ireland winning minor teams but it’s too early for them at this stage and making the transition as quickly and smooth as possible will be a further challenge.
A major question mark over Dublin was the absence of Rory O’Carroll and McCaffrey. On Sunday it wasn’t felt and there were hints that the team might manage when even the biggest days of championship arrive.
Flexible tactical approach
Throughout the campaign Gavin has indicated a flexible tactical approach to the edge of the square when coping with O’Carroll’s absence. Defenders tend to go man-to-man and if there is a specifically traditional challenge at full forward, such as
Michael Murphy
and on Sunday Kieran Donaghy posed individuals have been detailed to pick them up – James McCarthy in the former case and
Cian O'Sullivan
in the latter, both with auxiliaries.
Although McCaffrey's scorching speed can't be compensated for, Dublin will be happy with John Small's performance, which showed similar ambition in getting forward as well as decent pace and good strength in the challenge – needed when Peter Crowley pole-axed him in the first half.
Above all though, Cian O’Sullivan’s direction of the defence and ability to stay tight and drop off as demanded guarantees that the rear-guard will be well organised. As one Kerry man put it, any chance of the county reversing the result in championship will depend primarily on getting to grips with O’Sullivan and pressurising him.
The loss of O’Carroll and McCaffrey does have the effect of reducing Dublin’s options if injury strikes and it would be hard to see them coping if anything happened to, say, O’Sullivan who has been injury-prone in the past.
It's early days yet and Dublin know that the challenge they had on Sunday is unlikely to be the hardest test they receive all year but if you'd asked Jim Gavin at the start of the year what he wanted from the league, he could hardly have asked for much more than it delivered. smoran@irishtimes.com
