Looks who’s back again

E were all reading the tea-leaves after the All Ireland final. What’s that? A smile on Stephen Cluxton’s face? Oh that’s it, we all sagely intoned, he’s ready to call it a day. Happy and satisfied to go out on top.

Then there was the man himself, Jim Gavin, seeming to enjoy winning an All Ireland football final. Given how stoically he’d reacted to each of the previous five All Ireland titles this felt significant. We put two and two together and came up with five.

Gavin we imagined as a modern day Alexander. It wasn’t so much that he wept because there was no more worlds to conquer, just that he could finally express all those things he was feeling all along now that he’d reached the absolute pinnacle of his craft.

What more did he have to prove to himself or to anybody else? Surely there were more downsides than upsides in remaining in situ for the drive for six (we’ve another few months to come up with a more catchy moniker than that) – better to be remembered as the man who won five than lost the sixth?

Yeah, yeah, we know that’s a stretch. Gavin’s legacy is secured either way. You’ll forgive us for clutching at straws a little and trying to sketch out a possible post-Gavin future where the Sky Blues come back to the pack, just a little bit. The reality is though that’s all it was, clutching at straws. Cluxton hasn’t made any moves towards the exit and seems unlikely to any time soon. True enough tide and time wait for no man, but a goalkeeper has a little more leeway to stretch his career out.

Gavin, meanwhile, has reportedly agreed to remain in place until at least the end of his current contract and Gavin being the type of man that he is that was always likely to be the case. Gavin is a my word is my bond kind of guy and having agreed to stay for another two years in the winter of 2018 that should have been enough proof for us.

Instead we speculated that the two-year contract was little more than a tactic to deflect unnecessary attention on Gavin’s future as the wind up to the drive for five continued apace. Sometimes though things are exactly as they seem and what we see is Dublin’s dominance stretching into another decade with Gavin at the helm.

With Gavin on the line and Cluxton between the sticks as his on field general, do you see standards slipping in the capital any time soon? No? Not us either.