The morning after the night before and Brian Fenton stood alongside Paul Flynn and Paddy Andrews. The two men had to wait a while before they won their first All-Ireland. Fenton knows nothing else.
The Raheny clubman has now won three Sam Maguires in three championship summers. He has not lost a championship game since making his senior Dublin debut.
Reminded of that statistic again by RTE’s Marty Morrissey, Fenton said it was something he didn’t give a second’s pause to.
With Flynn and Andrews – two men that started their Dublin journey in 2008 – in close vicinity, the 24-year-old paid credit to the entire Dublin panel before uttering a line that sums up football’s dominant county. He said:
“We’re Dublin footballers – we don’t want to be beaten.”
That says it all, really.
There is a relentlessness about this Dublin team. They men who are fully aware of the talent that exists within their group and how it would be a crime to let a year pass without winning every single cup that is on offer.
It is why the Allianz football final loss to Kerry stung them so badly and why so many of the Dublin squad referenced it on the Croke Park pitch, mere minutes after Stephen Cluxton had raised the Sam Maguire for the third successive summer.
Dublin’s players know the rest of the country were pulling for Mayo on Sunday. They are used to being the bad guys but, until recently, they were the bad guys that underachieved. Flynn has now won five All Ireland titles but he was quick to remind Morrissey that the county’s fortunes were not always so bright. He said:
“This is my 11th season playing with the Dubs now and it’s been some journey. The start of it wasn’t always pretty and I had five years under my belt before we tasted success. The next five to six years have been an amazing journey.
“There have been highs and lows but it is always about the collective… Individual performances are put to one side once you have the Celtic Cross [medal] in your back pocket and we have that this year.”
For a man at the end of his 11th season with the senior panel, Flynn’s comments are surely taken on-board by the likes of Fenton, Con O’Callaghan and the next generation of Dublin footballers.
“We’re a lucky bunch of lads,” he said. “Privileged to be able to wear the jersey and to be part of a team that has been able to go to the well so many times and come out on top.”
Flynn replaced Jack McCaffrey early in the final and ended up in midfield when James McCarthy dropped back to keep a close eye on Aidan O’Shea.
“Jack going off injured so early was a loss but we pride ourselves so much on our panel and the 36 lads being there every week for every training session, driving each other on. We had to use every bit of that [panel] today.”
There may be seven years and a chasm of experience between Flynn and Fenton but they share an understanding that flows throughout this squad – they are Dublin footballers and they don’t like to be beaten.
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