Mick O'Dwyer has dominated the last decade of Gaelic football to a greater degree than any of the players who became national figures during that period. Naturally, most of them would be Kerry players. It is hardly necessary to remind readers that the county has won seven All-Irelands in eleven years -and lost two more - under his management.

At half-time in the All-Ireland final, the overwhelming majority of people in my vicinity felt that the match was already won by Kerry and irretrievably lost as a spectacle; that Dublin could not possibly make a game of it, much less threaten Kerry's clear superiority.

The week between the drawn game I and the replay was filled with controversy about the facilities at Pairc Vi Chaoimh, the lack of live television coverage, the possibility of a pitched battle between the Red and Blue armies and the psychological effect on the Dublin players of playing in a southern climate. Brendan O hEither reports on Dublin's successful sojourn south.