They shouldn’t give a damn about any of this.
The most advantageous part about being the best is that you don’t have to engage in the sort of petty arguments that don’t really matter anyway.
When everyone else is paining themselves to come up with intricate ways to plot your downfall or to take the goodness out of the success you’ve achieved, that success should be enough to satisfy you, it should be enough to convince yourself that you’ve had the last laugh and that you honestly don’t need to snipe back.
Dublin are the best and it doesn’t matter where they play Donegal because they’re good enough to beat them in Croke Park just as they’re good enough to beat them in Portlaoise or in Clones.
And if you asked any of the Dublin players if they’d rather play Donegal in Croke Park or in Ballybofey, there’s a strong chance half of them would say Ballybofey just so they could send these critics back to the drawing board for a while.
On the back of three successive All-Irelands and in hot pursuit of a forth, the Brian Fentons and the Cian O’Sullivans are only crying out for another challenge. That’s just the nature of the competitive beast and while playing Donegal in Clones would undoubtedly be more difficult than playing them in Croke Park, don’t for a second think these Dublin players will be quaking in their boots about a trip up or down the country.
The thing about all of this is that the Dublin players or management never engage in these kinds of arguments. They always brush them off with a shrug of the shoulders because really, they don’t give a damn and why would they?
The only ones who do take so much pride in arguments like these are a certain bunch of supporters who feel obliged to snipe back on the players’ behalves.
It only takes a small amount of being blinkered and aloof to create a bad name and when a man of the status of Alan Brogan has his head in the clouds, it doesn’t really do the rest of Dublin any favours.
For some reason, Alan feels that Dublin should be immune to the rules that every other county has to follow. These rules are “nonsense talk,” he says.
Moving Dublin out of Croke Park for one of their games in Super 8's is all nonsense talk…
— Alan Brogan (@alanbrogan13) June 27, 2018
82300 attended Dublin Donegal in all ireland quarter final in 2016.. are we really suggesting moving a game of thay magnitude out of croke pk..
— Alan Brogan (@alanbrogan13) June 27, 2018
And attitudes like this one feed the detractors and encourage them that Dublin actually do have a weak point and that’s what drives them on to keep digging because they know there’s a strong chance they’ll find what they’ve been looking for now.
Dublin’s home ground is Croke Park. Ever since their home League games were moved from Parnell to Croker in 2011, that has been the case.
Okay, they mightn’t train in Croke Park but just as they train in DCU or in other grounds around the county, Tyrone train in Garvaghey, Kildare train in Hawkfield and Tipperary train in Dr Morris Park.
You’re only kidding yourself if you think the regularity with which Dublin play in Croker, coupled with the voice of the home crowd isn’t enough to make these lads feel at home there on game day.
And surely to God we don’t even need to get into the value of home advantage now after the week we’re after having with Newbridge or Nowhere.
Super 8s
When the Super 8s concept was introduced to congress last year, one of its stipulations was that every team involved would have one home game, one away game and one neutral game in Croke Park.
These rules would surely have to be changed in Dublin’s case because going by that, they would have two home games and one away one.
No said GAA director general Padraig Duffy then when Colm Parkinson pulled him up on it last year. Donegal will play two away games in the Super 8s now.
Doesn't make sense https://t.co/BQ2CfRIwBV
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) June 25, 2018
So effectively we’re granting Dublin home advantage two times in comparison to every other team’s once. If that doesn’t go against the essence of sport that all participants are playing off a level playing field then what the hell does?
There is the argument that every player wants to play ‘in the best arena of all’ but surely that decision should be left to the players themselves, rather than having others make their minds up for them.
What’s too often lost in all of this is that the players are the most important people in all of this. They’re the ones who spend five nights a week training, who get slated on social media after a wide ball, they’re the ones who give us countless hours of joy every summer.
That’s why it’s so surprising and so galling when a man like Alan Brogan feels that satisfying the 82300 who want to attend the game is more important than satisfying these players.
So when Alan Brogan brushes it off as ‘nonsense’ when we suggest Dublin play by the rules everyone else does, we’re entitled to a good shake of the head.
