IN 2011, ONCE the 16-year famine was over for the Dublin footballers, the team were being hosted for a homecoming in Merrion Square.
Always good for a song, Kevin McManamon had his guitar with him. As well as blasting out some standards, he embarked on a fresh tune with new lyrics to commemorate his companions.
It peaked with a reference to the ‘poshest full-back line in football’, referring to Kilmacud Crokes duo Rory O’Carroll and Cian O’Sullivan, along with Michael Fitzsimons of Cuala.
The same two clubs now are in the Dublin senior football final. The jokes, as lame as they are, write themselves.
We’ll entertain a couple. On commentary duty for Sunday’s senior semi-final between Kilmacud Crokes and Na Fianna, was the hurling coach and journalist, Shane Stapleton. After Kilmacud’s victory, he referenced a previous hurling final between the clubs, labelled at the time as the ‘Clash of the Cash.’
When Cuala were rattling off two All-Irelands in 2017 and 2018 in hurling it felt like a bolt from the blue.
It shouldn’t have been. After all, they had taken their county in 1989, 1991 and 1994.
But the scene already had big south-side beasts in Ballyboden and Kilmacud vying it out. Cuala muscled in and took a chunk for their own turf. Their maiden All-Ireland triumph teased out the inspired line by the writer Seán Moran; ‘There won’t be an almond milked in Dalkey tonight.’
Playing the part of Boy Wonder was Con O’Callaghan. Such were his gifts that he was already been talked as yet another future great Dublin hurler lost to football.
He didn’t take long to muscle into the senior football firmament, establishing himself as a serious weapon among the made men of the six-in-a-row.
The end of that run came in the lockdown final of 2020, O’Callaghan netting a goal and finishing with the man-of-the-match award with another victory over Mayo.
In Cuala, their football journey has been more painstaking. They reached a county final in 1988 and were beaten by Parnells.
When a two-tier championship system came in 2016, they got a taste of the big time by reaching that final, only to be beaten by the Brogans’ St Oliver Plunkett Eoghan Ruadh.
It took them time but they won it in 2020 beating Brigid’s in the final of that level, and when the various committees in Dublin jumbled up the teams in a restructuring exercise, ended back there for 2021. They repeated the trick, beating Templeogue Synge Street in the decider.
Managed by Paul Curran back then, they have former Mayo and Wicklow player Austin O’Malley in charge now.
They have Mick Fitzsimons at the back, by now a stately institution of the full-back line. They have the totemic Peader O’Cofaigh Byrne and Peter Duffy at midfield – a statuesque department indeed.
And what gives them something else is Con O’Callaghan. Playing alongside his brother Niall, they were able to pull at the threads the Ballymun had hanging out in last Saturday’s semi-final.
Eventually, with fatigue setting in, the Kickhams fouled too many times and O’Callaghan nailed his opportunities from the dead ball. It wasn’t a tactical example of 4D chess; Cuala just went harder for a lot longer.
So who have we got with Kilmacud Crokes? Well, there is a remarkable resemblance to the side that they beat in the 2023 All-Ireland final and to whom they lost the All-Ireland semi-final nine months ago to Derry’s Glen.
Both have been on the road for so long and while that gives you an assurance and confidence when they find themselves in a sticky patch, you cannot ride the donkey that close to the tail and expect to remain regal.
They are underperforming, but no team in Dublin are quite good enough to take them out. It was the turn of Na Fianna to find that out last weekend. A black card for Jonny Cooper and a red card for Fiachra Potts proved setbacks at crucial stages.
For all the fuss generated over Shane Walsh joining the club a couple of years ago, he took the flak while Sligo footballer Paddy O’Connor (scorer of 0-4 from play against Na Fianna) was also added to the roster this season.
Recently installed as Meath boss, there doesn’t appear to be any sign that Kilmacud manager Robbie Brennan has the shovels washed and the van ticking over.
Interviewed after the semi final, he used language like, ‘scraped over the line’ and referenced a ‘twenty minute collapse’.
But they are survivors. This is their fourth consecutive final and they have won the previous three. Any comparable spell of dominance in the county is dwarfed by the St Vincent’s teams that made 15 consecutive county finals from 1948, winning 13 of them.
All the same, this is a novel pairing. It speaks of the enormous changes in the deep-lying currents of the GAA in the 21st century.
Biotech company Amgen are the Cuala sponsers. They announced the deal, somehow, with a Croke Park press launch. It is registered on the Nasdaq-100 index.
Previous sponsors include Davy (Ireland’s largest stockbroker, wealth and asset management company) and Huawei. These lads aren’t leaning on The Golden Chip to rustle up a set of jerseys.
Cuala draw from an area of around 1,000 households and have 1,600 active members, never mind those that just register as club members.
Back in 2020, Westmeath’s John Connellan highlighted, the Kilmacud Crokes’ membership figures in an interview on OTB AM as a debate took place over the resources Dublin clubs were drawing upon.
“Kilmacud Crokes on their website have a membership of 4,800 members. The cheapest membership they have is €160 for a student. The most expensive membership they have in Kilmacud is €650 for a family membership.”
Do the numbers here and you’ll find yourself talking in millions.
It’s also quite possible that large swathes, hundreds of people, could be members of either club and not really ever meet or know each other.
Consider that this week that 1992 All Ireland hurling champions Kiltormer have been relegated to junior A level in Galway, with those connected to the club citing rural depopulation as the root of their fall.
Then you recognise that the demographics committee in Croke Park really do have a gristly piece of meat to chew over.
