Here’s a snapshot of Bernard Brogan’s career as a Dubliner to date:
- 2006 – Leinster championship
- 2007 – Leinster championship
- 2008 – Leinster championship
- 2009 – Leinster championship
- 2010 – Footballer of the Year
- 2011 – Leinster and All-Ireland championship
- 2012 – Leinster championship
- 2013 – Leinster and All-Ireland championship
- 2014 – Leinster championship
- 2015 – Leinster and All-Ireland championship
- 2016 – Leinster and All-Ireland championship
It’s been a pretty decent 11 years as inter-county careers go. Four All-Irelands, four national leagues, four All-Stars and 10 provincial championships, Bernard Brogan has done it all with Dublin but there was always something missing.
Until Saturday night in Portlaoise at least.
Dublin’s win over Carlow in the Leinster quarter-final will be remembered by one of the greats for much longer than anyone could’ve imagined because June 3 2017 in O’Moore Park was special.
That was the day Bernard Brogan finally scored a championship point outside of Croke Park.
Brogan came on in the 45th minute for Kevin McManamon and made history in his 51st championship appearance by splitting the posts and doing it again to put to bed a record that he had never scored in championship football outside of headquarters.
Congrats to Bernard Brogan who, in 11th season, on 51st appearance, with 10 Leinsters, scored first championship point outside Croke Park.
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) June 3, 2017
In fairness, he had only ever gotten 51 minutes of championship football away from Croker up until this season. In 2016, most of the Dublin team played their first game away from that 82,000-seater stadium when they went to Nowlan Park to take on Laois.
Brogan didn’t score that day but he got the monkey off his back against Carlow – if he even noticed.
“I’ve scored more in the championship outside of Croke Park than Bernard Brogan, how about that?” Colm Parkinson beamed during the Dublin analysis on the Bank Holiday GAA Hour.
“I’m absolutely delighted with myself. Sorry, Berno. You’ve got a slight edge on me in Croke Park but I’ve got actually scored more from play than you outside of Croke Park.”
We don’t think he’ll be losing much sleep.
But the point remains that Dublin have never had to leave Croker – not often enough anyway. Their fans travel, they’re well up for going and they absolutely colour different towns across Ireland blue when they get the chance to but, for a decade, they just had to walk up to the stadium up the road for every single championship game.
Now, they get one game each summer outside of Croke Park – it would be much easier and much fairer if they got more. And the fans would enjoy it more too.
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