Dub stars

I’m not sure precisely when it was that I first started giving a shit about the fortunes of Dublin’s footballers.

It was certainly some time well after 1995, when they claimed the one All-Ireland championship that they are traditionally allotted per decade by the GAA’s committee of tribal elders.

But it must also have been before 1999, when they were slaughtered by an Ollie Murphy-inspired Meath. Foul Play clearly recalls being so sickened by the carnage which unfolded that day, that he asked the barman in the International to switch over to Sky’s coverage of the Charity Shield, a fixture which he normally spurns as he would spurn a travel programme presented by a former Big Brother inmate.

Now, as Foul Play pens these deathless lines, the Dubs are preparing to sally forth once more for what promises to be their second soul-destroying defeat of the current summer, at the hands of Kerry in Thurles this weekend.

They go into this encounter on something of a high, having administered a comprehensive kicking to the hind-quarters of Sligo at Croke Park the other week. That match, though, was little more than essentially a morale-boosting feelgood exercise, to salve the wounds inflicted on the team by yet another head-wrecking and completely needless defeat by Meath just six days earlier.

Watching the Meath game, one could only marvel at the stunning foolishness of some of the Dublin players in allowing themselves to be drawn into half-hearted fisticuffs and semi-punch-ups with the more, shall we say, uncompromising members of the Meath team.

When you see Ian Robertson, for instance, getting involved in a seemingly motiveless brawl with Darren Fay, your first reaction is not to leap off your stool and bellow, “Go on, put some manners on that fucking tramp!”, even though this was the exact course of action followed by the middle-aged gentleman sitting beside me in the pub. (And by the way, if you’re reading this, hi Dad.)

Rather, you utter a painful groan in the knowledge that Robbo will not be troubling the score-keepers overmuch this particular afternoon, and that he will be beckoned ashore by Tommy Carr well before the toll of the final bell.

Throw in Davy Byrne’s grotesque goalkeeping howler in the fifth minute, Dublin’s inexplicable penchant for turning good opportunities into agonising wides, and the fact that their successful stifling of the Meath dangermen Murphy, Giles and Geraghty merely left extra space for less heralded types like Richie Kealy and Evan Kelly to exploit, and the scene was set for an outcome of sick-making predictability.

The subsequent massacre of Sligo was at least a bit of fun to watch, even if it told us precisely nothing about the Dubs’ championship credentials, or lack of same.

Certainly, it is always a pleasure to see Dessie Farrell, a cracking footballer and a lovely man, helping himself to a rake of scores on a summer’s afternoon, even against opponents who seemed to visibly cringe like whipped curs every time he received possession.

Sligo were blitzed to such an extent that Coman Goggins (a corner-back, for fuck’s sake) was able to solo half the length of Croke Park before thumping over a monster point.

However, Carr and his players have enough savoir faire to realise that there are precisely two chances of similar scenes taking place against Kerry this weekend: Slim and None. And Slim has just left town.

Though they are not as far ahead of everybody else as, say, Kilkenny’s hurlers, Kerry are still the best team in the country, and it is difficult to see how the Dubs might get past them without recourse to either brown paper bags or automatic weapons.

Dublin are unlikely to disintegrate in the way that they did against Kildare last year, which was another R-rated horror show if ever Foul Play saw one, but you still wouldn’t give them much of a chance against Maurice Fitz, Mike Frank Russell and friends.

Perhaps, away from the vertiginous stands and dreaming spires of Croker, they will throw off their traditional neurosis, liberate their creative instincts and play like the team they can be.

But probably not.

Still, Meath drew Westmeath, who have turned into a rather decent football team on the quiet. So where there’s life, there’s hope.