NFL Division One A/Dublin 4-10 Mayo 1-10: The league is a lot like those gals your mother warned you about. Tons of fun but completely unreliable. Still, on Saturday nights when it gets dark and you need a little excitement in your life the transient sweetness of it all is hard to beat.
On Saturday we pulled a cracker. Dublin came to the Parnell Park mire following a misadventure in Fermanagh, where, as Pillar Caffrey put it, "they couldn't buy a score".
That setback changed the nature of their league ambitions to something a little more basic: survival. Mayo on the other hand have been living la vida loca with Mickey Moran, playing wonderful football and winning.
What makes Mayo so attractive is the confident ease of their scoring. On Saturday they went three points to one up in the first quarter-hour, and if their inside forwards had been playing out front more instead of hoping for the handy ball over the top they would have been further ahead.
Dublin by contrast were having problems. Ciarán Whelan had hobbled off after seven minutes and Mossy Quinn appeared to have badly twisted a knee. Dublin moved him to full forward till he could shake off the pain.
A minute later Mark Vaughan nudged Nallen off a ball out in the right corner and found Declan Lally. Lally moved to Quinn, who slotted low to the Mayo net. Just what the physio ordered.
Just a minute later Paul Griffin, operating as a wing back and an adventurous one at that, was brought down in front of the Mayo goal. Quinn, who hit a post with a penalty in Enniskillen the previous Sunday, struck a glorious shot to the roof of the net. Mossy recovered from the knee injury. Mayo never recovered.
"We chased them two goals," said Mickey Moran. "We didn't deserve to win but we didn't deserve to be nine points down. Everything went right for Dublin tonight and good luck to them."
As so often happens when Dublin get goals, the plumage came out. Playing with swagger they looked irresistible at times. Bryan Cullen, who looks better every time you see him, had a fine game, garnished with three nifty points. Shane Ryan, dragged from the bench when Whelan suffered what was pronounced a potentially serious knee injury, had a busy time processing a ton of ball.
And for Dublin there were satisfactions apart from the win and the torrent of goals. Mayo's great successes of the winter so far have been Ger Brady at centre forward and their wing backs Pat Kelly and Peadar Gardiner. On Saturday they were held scoreless and two of the three came off.
Mayo won't be too distressed by the setback. They looked like a team built for speed being forced to play on a gluepot. Moran's trawl for talent has been a huge success, and only about half the team that played on Saturday played in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Kerry last August.
On Saturday Kevin O'Neill came on to continue his rehabilitation from injury. Missing were the Mortimers, Ciarán McDonald, David Brady and Ronan McGarrity. And yet Mayo didn't look out of their depth.
They weren't helped when 20 minutes after the break Aidan Higgins, just on as a sub, was ordered straight off again after a clash with Coman Goggins.
Even then they battled well, and a few minutes later Austin O'Malley drew a splendid save from Stephen Cluxton. The subsequent 45 was put wide, part of a generally dismal evening with the dead ball for the Mayo men.
The game finished with a nice flourish. A kickout freakishly cleared the entire midfield and fell to Alan Brogan some 45 yards from the Mayo goal and all alone. He glided over the turf and finished explosively, then seconds later added a superb point before Kevin O'Neill finished the scoring with a free from hands. Cracking entertainment.
Both managers were philosophical. Dublin with four goals on the evening would have preferred their good fortune in instalments.
"We've been disappointed with the two last results," said Caffrey, "beaten by a point each time. . . It was raining scores today. Conditions were very bad but once the fellas got a bit of confidence, well when you see a Dublin team getting goals they'll always be looking for more."
Moran swallowed the loss of the unbeaten run with good grace.
"Everyone has been waiting for this defeat. It's happened. The clocks will go on and it will still be daylight come morning."
DUBLIN: S Cluxton; D Henry, B Cahill, P Casey; P Griffin, C Goggins, P Andrews; C Whelan, D Magee (0-1); D Lally, T Quinn (2-2 1-0 pen, 0-1 45), B Cullen (0-3); M Vaughan, C Keaney (1-2, 0-2f), A Brogan (1-2). Subs: S Ryan for Whelan (7 mins), P Burke for Lally (64 mins), D Bastick for Andrews (68 mins).
MAYO: J Healy; L O'Malley, D Heaney, K Higgins; P Kelly, J Nallen, P Gardiner; J Gill, B Moran; A Dillon (0-3, 1f), G Brady, BJ Padden; A Moran (0-2), A O'Malley (1-1), A Durcan (0-2). Subs: T Howley for Kelly (44 mins), K O'Neill (0-2, 2f) for Durcan (48 mins), A Higgins for Brady (52 mins), P Casey for Brady (64 mins).
Referee: J McKee (Armagh).
