PHILLY McMahon’s dial was turned up to nine last Thursday morning by the announcement of a very rare All-Stars team that had no Dub and no Kerryman.
If anyone had cases for grievance, it was Brian Ó Beaglaoich and Paudie Clifford, not anyone from Dublin.
The Dubs think everyone hates the Dubs.
And in a way they do, but only at surface level.
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But it’s not Dublin that people hate. It’s just their dominance.
‘It’s not you, it’s me’ kinda thing.
There grew a predictability about the All-Ireland series that made it boring for anyone that wasn’t winning.
Nothing is so boring as watching the same team win all the time.
Gaelic football at inter-county level has broken out of Dublin’s vice grip of the last decade.
But they will still win a handful of the next ten All-Irelands, and Kerry will get their share too.
What’s left to share out to the rest is generally dependent on whether those two are brilliant or a bit less than that.
Armagh and Tyrone have both profited from the dip. They’ve got their All-Irelands now. History points us back towards a new cycle of Dublin-Kerry success pretty soon.
I don’t subscribe to this theory but there are cynics who walk among us adamant that it’s no coincidence the new offense-minded rules have been brought forward by a committee headed by a Dub, a Kerryman and a now-unretired Donegal forward, whose riches might only accumulate further in the new game.
This year’s inter-county season wasn’t always electric but it wasn’t bad either.
All anyone really wants is the chance of a shock.
Gaelic football has struggled to provide that since time began. The big two are the big two and will always be the big two.
But amid the increased visibility of more TV coverage and its own space in the calendar, it is where the club championships find space to flex their muscle.
They, too, have been impressed upon by the growing influence of the Super Club.
But by the very nature of GAA clubs work, there is no fear that they will crush the spirit of rural clubs any time soon.
The big clubs will always be the big clubs but driven on by jealousy and fear and loathing of the lads next door doing it, traditional rural clubs will stay on their cyclical journey.
It won’t always be the same teams competing but there will always be teams there to compete.
When Newbridge shocked the country by beating Glen in last weekend’s Derry final, the instant draw is to call on their differences.
Four-square-miles with little more than a football pitch, Paul Martin’s shop and an old abandoned airfield from the war, the Newbridge crop of 2024 leans heavily on its history and its breeding.
They do differ from Glen in that sense, because so few of the Watties players’ parents played senior football for the club.
But the similarities between the two stood out too. They are essentially two large groups of friends, almost exclusively in a four-year age bracket.
Newbridge beat our minors in the championship semi-final this year. They had to play 13-a-side because it was all they had. Yet within their ranks was the best minor footballer in Ireland this year, Eamon Young, and his All-Ireland winning team-mate with Derry, Cathair McBride, son of Loup legend Johnny who lives in the ‘Bridge.
To think they have those two and Paudie McGrogan to put into a team next year that has a frighteningly young age profile, you start to wonder where their ceiling is.
Whatever success comes their way from here, it will be cyclical. It all is.
When any club wins, we hunt as journalists for their secret. Who coached them? Kicking off both feet from the age of 4, you say? Magic. Half-price steaks on Tuesday and Thursday from the local butcher? No wonder they won it.
There is no secret. Only good coaching, good genetics and a good group that’s prepared to stick and it and wait it out for their turn.
In any county, there will be clubs that are always there, your Errigal Ciarans and your Scotstowns and your Dr Crokes and Corofin and Kilmacud.
The sheer weight of numbers will keep them competitive. But it won’t always make them win.
And therein lies the essence and the joy of the club game.
All four of January’s All-Ireland club finalists in football and hurling failed to make it out of their own county this year.
Ballygunner have assumed the mantle of being strong favourites in hurling. That tag survived its first stress test against Doon and will be hauled at plenty more before any black and red ribbons get tied in Croke Park.
In football, there is no favourite.
Corofin are there, the big name in the field, but they’re a more human version of themselves than the team that won four All-Irelands in five years.
Dr Crokes are the only club from Munster to have reached an All-Ireland final (twice) since Kilmurry-Ibrickane lost to St Gall’s in 2010. They are back on the scene but their invincibility has been punctured by how others from Munster have represented them.
Perhaps that plays into their hands but they do have to prove themselves again.
Leinster has already had one upset, with Wicklow’s Tinahely stunning Portarlington on Sunday. Dublin clubs have won the last four provincial titles since tiny Mullinalaghta shocked them all in 2018 but with Kilmacud gone and Cuala first-time visitors, others will be spying the opportunity.
And that brings us to Ulster.
The bookies make it Kilcoo followed by Errigal Ciaran but my favourites are Scotstown.
This will be their eighth Ulster campaign in ten years. They’ve lost three finals, all of them down the stretch, two of them in extra-time. Eventual winners Ballinderry also beat them in 2014.
They have scraped and scratched at the door for a decade.
There’s just so much inexperience around this time. A first go for Newbridge and Erne Gaels, a second for Clann Eireann and Crosserlough, the same for most (but not all) of the Errigal Ciaran team, it is an uncharacteristically green field.
You have Kilcoo and Cargin as veterans of the scene along with Monaghan’s dominant force, who have tried for so long to emulate their teams of the late ‘70s and ‘80s. This is the best chance they will get.