Stage still a dress rehearsal for Dubs

LOGIC was at play when Eamonn Fitzmaurice suggested that the correlation between League and Championship success may well become diluted, but not enough to have our heads turned.

It may well be the case that in time, when Dublin are aged and not blessed with the wealth of options that most likely would see their reserves win Division 2, the existence of a far more prestigious Championship league in July will prove a distraction.

But right now the Super 8s is no spring game-changer, and not just for Dublin. The other big three, Mayo, Kerry and Tyrone, will all be inaugural members of the Championship’s much hyped format, which will not throw-in until 15 weeks after the League final.

But if the Super 8s will not diminish the League’s standing, that is not to say that, at the highest level, its importance continues to shrink.

True, the correlation as it stands makes for impressive reading; since the turn of the millennium the League/Championship double has been completed nine times, effectively every other year.

That stands as quite the citation for the league’s relevance but that has more to do with the fact that six of those doubles were shared equally by two exceptional teams — the Kerry noughties specials and Jim Gavin’s all-conquering champions — than best practice.

There is nothing to suggest that trend will not continue, not least because of Dublin’s presence.

And it is not that they busy themselves in pursuit of the League — the change-up in their preparation schedule, which has been replicated this year, means they are more vulnerable than most in the early rounds but in a perverse way that suits Gavin.

While last year their struggle, albeit an ultimately successful one, to set an all-time unbeaten record was interpreted as an early sign that they might be coming back to join the game’s pack, it would, by the end of the year, prove to be what would separate them from it.

The world continues to marvel at their capacity to win tight games — this group’s five All-Ireland final wins have been won by a cumulative aggregate of seven points — but that instinct has been sharpened in the League.

That was evident last year when coming from behind to turn likely defeats into results against Tyrone, Kerry and Monaghan.

It has become their defining characteristic that they never back down, irrespective of the prize, from a fight.

And that is why, even if they take a couple of early dunts — the most inevitable next weekend when they travel to Omagh — once they reach the final then they are unlikely to fall.