Paul Galvin knows all about beating Dublin. In 2009 a Dublin team full of hope and expectation arrived in Croke Park to face a Kerry team that had scraped past Sligo and Antrim in their previous two games. Helped by a Colm Cooper masterclass, the Kingdom proceeded to give the Dubs a footballing lesson. That Dublin team is mostly gone, and a new generation have emerged under Jim Gavin to appear at times unstoppable in their quest to retain Sam. They are odds-on favourites to beat Kerry and then either Mayo or Tipperary, especially after dispatching a brave Donegal side on Saturday. The Dubs won out despite having Diarmuid Connolly and Eoghan O'Gara both sent off in the second half-but Galvin thinks that they have yet to prove themselves fully.
Writing in his 'Sunday Times' column, Galvin recalls a recent conversation he had with a Dublin fan who said he hoped to face Mayo in the final, thus dismissing the challenge of Kerry in the semi-final. Galvin warned of the danger of such "hype" spreading around the county. And he made a fairly chilling remark about the effect such dismissals of their county have on Kerry men.
He had a few buddies with him and they seemed equally cocksure. Multiply that by even half (the) population of Dublin, and if that's the talk, then there's your disease.
I felt something shift inside me.
He urged the new batch of Kingdom footballers to "step up and take over the game and create a new identity for themselves". And, in a line of literary beauty, he further emphasised the danger that over-confidence poses for the Dubs.
Hype can be bought and sold across a bar counter and though it can be invisible it can blind you. But there's one thing you cannot be blind to, and that's recent history.
Perhaps there is a bit of mischief in Galvin's comments - his former team-mates Darragh and Tomas Ó Sé never shy away from cute hoor-ism in their own newspaper columns - but he rounded off his fine piece by raising question marks over the Dubs' ability to deliver Sam to the Hill once more.
Dublin have everything won at the moment, but they still have it all to prove in even reaching a second successive final, never mind winning back-to-back All-Irelands. The real victory for them will be drowning out the noise and doing what most people say is a matter of course for them.
Recent history suggests they can't do it.
As much as I admire their team personality, I'm not buying the hype just yet.
The Dubs' psychological preparation is probably far too complex to allow the use of old-fashioned 'newspaper on the dressing room wall' methods, but nevertheless Éamonn Fitzmaurice may not thank Galvin for stirring the pot ahead of Kerry and Dublin's mouthwatering fixture on August 28th.
