Dublin 0-15 Wexford 1-10Ten miles outside Carlow on Saturday evening and the traffic was still stuck. It was raining, too, but the Dublin supporters were already wondering if it was worth the trip.
Instead of raising their confidence, Wexford had raised some questions. Is this team still coming or going, even content, and who said seven years is too long a wait? So began another Dublin quest for a Leinster football title.
Beforehand Dublin fans must have been confident of opening up Wexford like two years ago - and briefly they did - yet in the end they were defending their goal-line to avoid a rematch, or worse.
Champions of course have had more humble beginnings. But it wasn't exactly laughs all round when Tommy Lyons jested afterwards that his team had no chance of winning Leinster.
What Lyons can't be joking about is Dublin's urgent need for improvement. He had no explanation for the cracks in the second half, when once again the Dublin foundations started to groan and their eight-point cushion from the first half-hour gradually disintegrated.
Wexford's goal about 30 seconds after the turnaround didn't bring the walls down like the infamous collapse of 2000, but again Dublin had problems reinforcing their superiority on the game. Players drifted in and out like satellites and the wides count started to mount more rapidly too.
"No, we wouldn't be happy with that," admitted Lyons, and then reeled off some clichés that always help disguise the faults.
"But at the end of the day championship games are about winning. We knew we weren't going to win this game too easy, and in fairness to Wexford they put it up to us. Collectively we weren't good, but, sure every day is a learning one."
There are some lessons to take from this game. Dublin's forwards can be lethal when they operate off the sort of direct football Lyons raves about. Dessie Farrell hasn't lost his touch (scoring actually with his first touch) and Roy Cosgrove seems like a reliable free-taker, but as a unit their passing and communication too often went astray.
In defence the emergence of Barry Cahill and Paul Casey is almost complete. But with Coman Goggins retiring early with injury, and likewise his replacement Paul Curran, the frailties were also revealed. At this point both Goggins (ankle injury) and Curran (knee injury) are likely to miss the Leinster semi-final on June 23rd.
For much of the second half Dublin allowed Wexford to walk out with the ball, and Lyons was concerned too about the lack of any launch pad in the attack.
"I was very confident coming down here but we just didn't play," he said. "We were nine points to one and looked like we were coasting. They got the goal, but sure they never got back to more than two or three points, and we didn't panic either."
Only the true Dublin optimists would agree with those last words. When the clock showed four minutes left, and Wexford trailed by just two points, panic didn't seem that far away. Even more so when Cosgrove slipped up with a free.
Jason Sherlock made his late appearance all the more vital by popping over a point, but still Dublin were living on the edge. Matty Forde and Redmond Barry were now a constant threat running at the Dublin goal and Forde almost stole the show at the death.
Two minutes into added time his low and powerful shot had to be cleared off the goal-line by Casey. Leigh O'Brien also kept the threat alive, before sending a free over the bar with the last kick of the game. At the final whistle it was like Wexford had died of thirst two steps from the well.
For their manager Ger Halligan, the first reaction was disappointment: "We know we could have won that game. The fellows in that dressing-room are very disappointed, but they know too that to win these games you have to play for 70 minutes.
"And the 15 minutes before half-time was the real killer for us. But we said at half-time that we weren't doing ourselves justice at all. And you couldn't question any of them in the second half.
"We have built up a great belief over the last couple of years, and there are some good footballers in Wexford. Maybe though it's just getting that added belief that we can knock over teams like Dublin. But two years ago they beat us by 20-odd points and I think we showed here the gap is closing."
If Forde had found his target with that last shot, then the gap would have closed all the way. "Yeah, well I was on top of the stand when that last shot went in," smiled Halligan. "You know Matty (Forde) can stick them in, and I don't know who blocked it, but I thought it was going in.
"But we have to think positively about this and get into the right frame of mind, as quickly as possible. We're out again next Saturday in the qualifiers but we're not complaining about that."
HOW THEY LINED OUT
DUBLIN: 1 S Cluxton; 2 B Cahill, 3 P Christie, 4 C Goggins; 5 P Casey, 6 J Magee, 7 P Andrews; 8 D Homan, 9 C Whelan; 10 S Connell, 11 S Ryan, 12 C Moran; 13 A Brogan, D Farrell, R Cosgrove.
Subs: P Curran for Goggins, inj (27 mins), D Magee for Curran, inj (40 mins), T Mulligan for Moran (55 mins), J Sherlock for Brogan (60 mins), J Gavin for Connell (70).
Booked: C Whelan (52 mins), P Andrews (61 mins).
WEXFORD: 1 O Murphy; 4 N Murphy, 3 P Wallace, 2 C Morris; 5 D Murphy, 6 D Breen, 7 L O'Brien; 8 D Kinsella, 9 W Carley; 10 P Forde, 12 R Barry, 15 M Forde; 14 J Hegarty, 11 J Berry, 13 J Lawlor.
Subs: S Doran for Lawlor (29 mins), R Mageean for N Murphy (58 mins).
Booked: W Carley (57 mins), D Kinsella (67 mins), D Murphy (70 mins).
