The Dublin team we have seen over the last decade is the greatest one we have ever seen in either code of Gaelic games.
We have never witnessed a team as dominant as this. Eight All-Ireland titles in ten years is a remarkable feat, with their run of six consecutive Sam Maguires unlikely to ever be beaten.
In the years to come, we will look back and recognise some of the players from this team as being amongst the pantheon of true GAA greats. Stephen Cluxton, James McCarthy, Brian Fenton, Ciaran Kilkenny, Jack McCaffrey, and many more will go down in history as some of the best to ever do it.
Despite all of this, the joy had been sucked out of watching this great side in recent years.
It wasn't just the routineness of their victories that began to slowly ware away the interest amongst the general public. As this team began to get deeper into their run, the methodical nature in which they approached every aspect of the game often affected the spectacle on show.
We're not going to criticise the way Dublin played 'keep ball' as the opposition sat deep, as frustrating as it was to watch at times. It worked for them through the years as they tired out their opponents and allowed them to eventually pick off easy scores.
In saying that, it had become less effective in 2021. As Dublin became so obsessed with keeping the ball, it almost looked as though they forgot how to actually finish off those moves. It is surely no coincidence that they went on long scoreless runs on a number of occasions in this championship.
While that was one aspect of their game that let them down, there was another that they have so often fallen back on that abandoned them yesterday.
For as good as this Dublin team have been in playing brilliant football, there is also no debate that no other county was as well versed in the dark arts of the game.
There have been countless examples down through the years.
When Dublin had a lead late in a game, they attempted to kill the opposition momentum and draw out the clock by any means necessary. Often, they did so by some rather unsavoury means.
It often came in the form of pulling opposition players down and starting a tussle, something which inevitably drained quite a few seconds off the clock. If a black card was the result, then so be it.
The most famous example of this probably came in the 2017 All-Ireland final.
Dean Rock had just kicked a fantastic point in injury time to give Dublin the lead over Mayo (admittedly after Lee Keegan had tried an underhanded trick of his own to put him off), with the Connacht side keen to take a quick kick-out to get the game going once again.
Instead, a number of Dublin players would immediately grab their markers and pull them to the ground, thus stopping the game. Here is just one example, from Ciaran Kilkenny:
A few cards were handed out, but that was of little consequence. Dublin were given the time to reset themselves, won the resulting kick-out and killed the game. Job done.
Last night, this abandoned them.
Seeing Dublin players passing the ball around their own goal line in the dying minutes was a remarkable sight, one that there was always a sense could end in disaster. Perhaps the more experienced head of Stephen Cluxton would have seen sense and shifted the ball up the pitch.
Instead, it was fumbled out across the end line, allowing Rob Hennelly to kick the levelling score.
We saw a bit of the classic Dublin from the resulting kick-out. Another scrap was started in an attempt to stop Mayo from killing the game off with a final point. It worked and got them through to extra-time.
However, with the momentum firmly behind Mayo at this, that tried and tested playbook that Dublin had used so often throughout the years.
Mayo took the lead and The Dubs looked completely out of ideas. Having spent the last half decade playing the ball around on the opposition 65-metre line without the need for any real urgency, they looked baffled as to how to drag themselves back into the game.
They trailed by only three points with a few minutes to go, but the margin may as well have been three times that. They looked completely rattled, as evidenced by the constant barrages of abuse directed at the referee, some of which resulted in black cards.
In the midst of unfamiliar circumstances and with the cynicism playbook now useless, they looked perplexed and unprepared.
Would this have happened under Jim Gavin? It may be a tad unfair to suggest this comes down to management, but Dublin always seemed prepared for any circumstances under the previous manager.
That did not look to be the case yesterday. They seemed genuinely at a loss by the time the final whistle was blown.
All great runs must come to an end, but the circumstances surrounding Dublin's abdication of the throne were a massive surprise.
They will be back, although certain changes may be needed before they reestablish themselves as the unstoppable juggernaut they once were.
SEE ALSO: Joe Brolly's Mayo-Dublin Prediction Certainly Has Not Aged Well
