Dublin Faces Cavan in Round 2B: A Shift in Championship Dynamics
The roar has gone quiet. The blue wave that once swept through Croke Park with an air of inevitability now feels more like a tired tide, dragging itself back from the shoreline.
After a fourth straight home defeat, Dublin have at least caught a break. Cavan in Round 2B is about as kind a draw as they could have hoped for in their current state. Kind, but not comforting. Not anymore.
Cavan, for their part, finally flickered into life away to Westmeath, pushing the Leinster champions to the brink. They are no longer the soft touch their recent record might suggest. Dublin know that only too well. Yes, they ran up a big score in Kingspan Breffni in a group game a couple of years back, but that was a different time, a different mood, a different Dublin.
Now, nothing about them feels guaranteed.
On paper, you’d still expect them to edge through this round. Habit alone makes you lean that way. But the old certainties have evaporated. Every assumption around this Dublin team now comes with a question mark.
One small mercy: they’re out of Croke Park for this one. That says plenty in itself. For years, Croker was their stage, their fortress, their playground. Now it feels like a vast, unforgiving space that exposes the age in their legs and the doubt in their minds.
The stands tell an even harsher story. Around 16,000 turned up for their last home game, a staggering comedown for a county that once turned league fixtures into events. And even that modest crowd included a healthy chunk of Louth supporters. The bandwagon has rolled on without them. The razzmatazz, the noise, the sense of an occasion every time they played – gone.
It wasn’t always about All-Irelands either. Back in the Pillar Caffrey era, before the medals started to pile up, they still drew huge crowds. There was a feeling of something building, of a team on the rise, of a city leaning into a dream.
Now? They’ve feasted on success for a decade and look bloated from it. The sense is not of a team hunting history, but of one sliding down the far side of the mountain.
For those whose careers collided with peak Dublin in the 2010s, there’s a bittersweet edge to watching this unfold. The joke among old rivals is that the collapse took its time. The fear back then was that Dublin’s dominance would stretch on indefinitely, a permanent fact of life. It always sounded like a fantasy built on panic.
Sport doesn’t work like that. It never has. Sustaining that level of control is brutally hard, and Dublin managed it for long enough. But every great side eventually frays at the edges. Leaders retire. Standards slip. The golden generation gives way to a younger, rawer, less gifted group still learning what it takes.
All the while, everyone else is catching up. Rivals study, adapt, evolve. Their hunger sharpens. The champions’ edge dulls. It’s the same story in every code, in every era, in every corner of the sporting world.
Dublin’s famed underage conveyor belt hasn’t looked quite as ruthless in recent years either. A decade ago, people spoke in almost reverential tones about the Ciarán Kilkenny and Jack McCaffrey wave coming through. That era delivered exactly what it promised. The more recent crop? The success has been thin. At provincial level, never mind All-Ireland.
Then came the rule changes, landing at the worst possible moment for them. Many of the greats of the last decade were nearing the end, the younger players still trying to grow into the jersey. The older crew had mastered the previous landscape, the pre-FRC game. Suddenly, the map changed. The game shifted under their feet.
There are still flashes. Their attack can click. When they find their rhythm, they move the ball with pace and intelligence. Con O’Callaghan remains a force, his form one of the few reassuring constants. Some first halves this season have looked like the old Dublin – that league spell against Roscommon, the opening against Armagh. But they can’t stretch it across 70 minutes. The control fades. The legs look heavy. The assurance drains away.
Ger Brennan will be back on the sideline after what many in Dublin view as an absurdly harsh suspension for his wrestling incident in Pearse Stadium. There was a theory that the sense of injustice – along with the sting of Niall Moyna’s recent comments – might spark something in them, give them a cause to rally around.
If it did, you couldn’t see it last Sunday.
The most damning issue is at the back. Their defence leaks chances and panic in equal measure. Any time an opposition runner cuts through the lines, anxiety seems to ripple across their rearguard. There’s a nervousness there that you simply never associated with Dublin in their pomp.
Craig Lennon’s late, decisive goal summed it up. It was the kind of soft concession that haunts dressing rooms and video reviews. A brutal goal for any team to give away, let alone one that once prided itself on suffocating opponents when it mattered most.
And here’s the unthinkable line: when teams get a run at them now, they can look even more open than Mayo. That takes some doing.
Mayo, at least, found the winners’ path in Round 2, though they did it in the most Mayo way possible – by turning a dominant position into a near-collapse that laid bare their own defensive chaos.
The first half against Monaghan could hardly have been scripted better. Ryan O’Donoghue and Kobe McDonald were dropping glorious two-pointers over the bar, the wind at their backs and the scoreboard ticking nicely. The elements were tricky, but Mayo looked to have built a lead big enough to ride out any storm.
That sense only grew midway through the second half. Monaghan, somehow, were still miles behind despite a flurry of goal chances straight after the restart. Jack Livingstone, on debut, stood tall. He was outstanding, a commanding presence, and for a long time it felt like nothing would breach the Mayo net.
Then Bobby McCaul struck. One sharp, clinical finish and the whole game flipped. The closing stages turned wild.
Mayo’s game management in that final quarter won’t be making any coaching manuals. They wobbled. They invited pressure. They flirted with disaster. Some of that, though, comes with the Monaghan territory. They bring a kind of chaos, a fearless edge that unsettles even the most seasoned sides when the clock is ticking down.
In the end, it took Kobe McDonald climbing into the sky to claim the final kickout in midfield for Mayo to finally exhale. Andy Moran’s face at the whistle told its own story – relief mixed with something close to bewilderment. Mayo supporters walked away with the points, but not with peace of mind. The questions around their defence, their composure, their ceiling this summer, all remain.
Those questions now roll on to Omagh. Mayo turned Tyrone over there last year, a statement win that still couldn’t rescue their wider campaign. As ever with Mayo, form guides are flimsy things.
Dublin, Cavan, Mayo, Monaghan, Tyrone – all moving parts in a championship that suddenly feels open again. The empire has cracked, the old order is wobbling, and nobody quite knows who is ready – or able – to take full advantage.
