Pat Gilroy comes bounding in with Alan and Bernard Brogan and suddenly everything is illuminated, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

LORD KNOWS they’ve paid some dues getting through, been hit too hard, and seen so much, that when they orchestrate the most incredibly perfect way to win an All-Ireland football title they can afford to laugh about it.

“Absolutely planned,” says Pat Gilroy (below), who looks like a man who hasn’t smiled as hard in 16 years, and he wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, we said with seven minutes left, we’d be four points down, and everything would fall into place.

“But no, seriously, great to do it that way. When you don’t have to protect a lead for more than seven seconds it’s fantastic.”

It made victory that bit sweeter, no question about that, although no one was questioning Dublin’s deservedness either, least of all when Gilroy comes bounding into the interview room under the Hogan Stand, with Alan and Bernard Brogan in tow, and suddenly everything is illuminated, even in the shadowy light.

“We always felt that maybe running at Kerry in the last 20 minutes might yield some dividends,” says Gilroy, at least trying to sound composed. “We had some guys on the bench that could do that. Kevin McManamon was obviously one of those.

“So I felt that we would always create the chances. Even when there was only three minutes left I felt that we would create the goal chances with the guys we had on the pitch at that stage. Because we always felt irrespective of the score that we were going to finish this game out and we would see if we came out the wrong side of it. That worked out to perfection.”

The two Brogans jump in to give their view – as Bernard hardly disguises his emotion, and older brother Alan the relief.

“An incredible feeling, obviously, and they had to pull me off the pitch there,” says Bernard. “The stewards were asking us to leave. I was sitting in the centre-circle and I didn’t want to leave. It’s a feeling you don’t get very often. I wanted to soak up every second of it.

“We obviously weren’t in a great position in the last six minutes or so but I thought back to the Donegal game, that we have dug this out before. Kevin McManamon was after coming off the bench and he was always going to go at players. I knew that something would come. In fairness to the man, he has been unbelievable all year and I am delighted for him. He’s just a legend.”

The Brogans had grown up living with a legend, namely their father Bernard Snr, and Alan admits the relief at finally levelling that: “Of course there were times over the last three or four years where the likes of myself, Barry Cahill, Stephen Cluxton and Paul Casey thought we might never win an All-Ireland.

“Since Pat came in and these younger guys, guys that don’t carry any baggage, playing against Kerry doesn’t faze them as it might have fazed us, and I think that has been the difference in pushing us over the line.”

Even after McManamon’s goal the game still had to be won – and so up stepped the Dublin goalkeeper. For such a pressure kick some people were wondering should Bernard Brogan not be standing over it?

“No, my two legs were like rocks at that stage. I had to lie down at one stage because my calves had exploded. We’ve had kicking practice all year and “Clucko” has been kicking frees from that spot, and I never had a shadow of a doubt that he was going to get that and it went over the black spot.

“He’s got a great mental ability to kick that without any nerves. It shows his strength. He is an unbelievable talent, and we are lucky to have him. So it can’t get any better than that. You couldn’t write it in a fairytale. I never thought I’d be here, after beating Kerry in an All-Ireland final. I’m just delighted for Alan who has given 10 years of Trojan work, and he must be in line for footballer of the yearl.

“Last year, me and Pat had a chat when I won player of the year and he was saying, ‘congratulations, delighted’ but we have to get back to square one and he said, ‘my dream is that we win an All-Ireland against Kerry next year and Alan is players of the year.

“So we are nearly there.”

Gilroy is then reminded about a couple of chapters from Dublin’s recent past.

“There’s only so much pain humans can take. I mean I’ve only been here a short time really in comparison to some of these fellas. But as a supporter we’ve been through terrible days here and there’s only so much of that you can keep taking. Today, no matter what happened, we’re going to get the result to be honest. That’s the attitude we had all week. We weren’t just happy getting to a final. We wanted to push on, and win it.

“We addressed 2009 in November 2009, at a training game in Corduff in Monaghan. And we’ve done an awful lot of work on our mindset. Some people who know a lot about the mind have been really helpful, they’ve done exceptional stuff with us to be honest, and we’d be very grateful to them.”

Maybe it was all the mind, after all.