LOCKER ROOM:No team from the capital will ever reach an All-Ireland unnoticed. It's time everyone accepted this fact

DUBLIN VERSUS Kerry was as much fun as we have had on a Saturday night without being arrested. Even with just 23,000 people in it, Croke Park managed to offer more of a sense of occasion than Parnell Park. And the game? It found its own context and became elevated from a February league match to something a bit more profound.

Dublin won, which is one thing, but they won coming back off the ropes, which is another. The self-belief with which they went about creating and executing the winning score reflects a complete transformation of mindset from the startled earwigs XV who crumpled here against the same opposition two years ago.

The manner of Dublin’s displays so far in the league campaign reflects well on the odd form of socialism at work in great teams. A wise management takes from each player according to his ability and gives to each according to his need. And for that to work the players much buy into the collective. Every individual must be on a path that is parallel to the great march of the team.

When that happens sport offers a rare and beautiful thrill. And Dublin are getting there. Alan Brogan and Bryan Cullen, for instance, could sit on the bench with faces like slapped arses waiting to be inserted into the action, and when called upon to play they could offer up eye-catching solo performances, smoke signals to the faithful suggesting that they are too good for this type of work.

But marginally what they add when they arrive is massive. Their value to the team has increased. Dublin are getting more out of their immense abilities. And as for the needs of players, there is a methodical and common-sense philosophy at work, it seems, whereby if a player has, say, five of the seven components necessary to make the team he doesn’t get thrown back to the sea. He gets coached in what he is lacking.

That seems so basic but how many county teams at this time of year are looking at lads for 70 or 100 minutes on bad ground and condemning them to the dustbin because they have a little of everything, not enough of anything.

I remember hearing that phrase used a couple of times with regard to Donnacha Walsh of Kerry who, it is often forgotten, made his debut amongst much fanfare in a league game against Dublin a long time ago and was discarded soon after. He has been rediscovered and recycled and retrained and has become an invaluable member of the Kerry attack however. Back in the time of his debut he was flagged as the new Jack O’Shea and that was how he was measured and judged. Now he has a specific role for which he is well coached and well able. That’s what wise management is all about.

Dublin are in a position now which many of their own fans fear and despise. Three wins on the trot against decent opposition and the faithful tremble with anticipation while cursing under their breath that the media will start “hyping it up”. Doh! Of course they will.

Dublin 16 seasons after the last All-Ireland are still the sexiest and most charismatic team in the country. They sell papers. They sell jerseys. They get granted celebrity before they achieve anything substantial. They cheer people up.

Complaining about hype is like moaning about high mountains having altitude and thin air. It comes with the territory. Dublin need to ride it out, take from it what they can extract and get on with their business. No Dublin team will ever sneak into an All-Ireland final unnoticed. And if they did, the sudden damburst of hype would sweep them away.

Let’s face it, Dublin have a lot of advantages just being Dublin. Getting to play four reasonably pressured league games in Croker is an advantage. Living in a city so geographically compact that the team can train in the early morning and still get to work is an advantage. Having an enlightened county board and an excellent sponsorship deal is an advantage. Having immensely vocal support is an advantage.

And getting used to the hype can become an advantage. Armagh and Tyrone always did media very well. They talked and used the opportunity to create little advertisements for themselves, little things which got into the heads of other teams.

We picture still Kieran McGeeney breaking from physical exercise only to sleep and to eat some fruit. We imagine Armagh unable to squeeze their broad shoulders through the door of the team coach. We picture Tyrone gathered and channelling the mystic powers of Mickey Harte. They never took the route which so many teams take, claiming that, “we’ll be lucky to keep the ball kicked out to them on Sunday”. Every All-Ireland final is a festival of hype. That’s a large part of how the games sell themselves to the next generation.

If hype is altitude Dublin can choose to live at altitude and take it in their stride come any September. Or they can fret and stress themselves and close their eyes and hope that everybody just goes away. That’s a form of the tentativeness and timidity which has informed so many Dublin collapses over the last 10 years. It seems to be vanishing.

Dublin can be well pleased with their work thus far in the league. It was good on Saturday to win a game without the benefit of Bernard Brogan running riot. Kevin McManamon is a fine example of a player who could have been discarded but instead has improved. Eoghan O’Gara needs a lot of polishing and finishing but his speed and aggression impress right up to the point where he has to make a decision. Still, with poor Mark Davoren still too crocked to occupy the “something different” slot, O’Gara is worth more time.

Seán Murray was great value on Saturday night launching himself into Kieran Donaghy again and again. There is certainly a lot that is Holdenesque about his style and confidence. Michael Dara McAuley seems set to make fools of us who feared he would be a one -season wonder. The list goes on. And then there are the injury victims and the Kilmacud Crokes absentee list. All good news.

In the green and gold corner, Jack O’Connor looked bothered towards the end on Saturday night, but that was the game taking him away rather than a chilled appraisal of what happened. Kerry lost, but he must have drawn encouragement at last from David Moran, been generally pleased with midfield, wondered anew at the Gooch, and smiled to himself at the thought of sliding Declan O’Sullivan and Paul Galvin back into his forwards.

Their demise as a force has been greatly exaggerated. And the Dubs who fear the scythe of hype might reflect on what it is like to be a Kerry man or manager living in a county where every man, woman and child is a certified expert in football, where the local media never ceases with the hype or the criticism and where every result is regarded either as the onset of famine or reason to resume feasting.

They live with it. They use it. Nobody is better than Jack O’Connor at upping the ante for a team by using a gentle amount of friction to jump-start them out of the comfort zone. If Dublin copy that page from the Kerry playbook and proceed with conviction Saturday’s fun might be reproduced in All-Ireland form late in the year. Dublin and Kerry on the third Sunday of September!

Who could handle that one hypewise?