And so, history has been made. The elusive spell of five All-Ireland championships in a row – never before achieved – has finally been broken. Jim Gavin's invincible Dublin team saw off Kerry at the second time of asking on Saturday night to create history and lift the Sam Maguire once again. We have plenty of coverage for you both online and in the newspaper this morning with Keith Duggan writing that "the football landscape has been transformed from a city of clay to a city of marble. Through five full seasons Dublin remained unbeaten and so bring the GAA and Irish sporting culture into a place that had previously been the preserve of fatalistic Kerry mythology." It was in the first game against Kerry two weeks ago when Jonny Cooper was shown a first half red card – an incident that almost saw Dublin's history-making come crashing down. On Saturday night Cooper was back in the team and played a pivotal role in what was his redemption song, writes Malachy Clerkin.
One of the key men all season for Dublin has been Jack McCaffrey. Indeed it was his goal that was so crucial in the first game and again on Saturday he played a major role. In a world full of sterilised sporting interviews, McCaffrey is by far one of the more interesting and on Sunday morning in the Gibson Hotel he reflected on love, life, friendship and Dublin's five-in-a-row. For Kerry it's another final defeat to Dublin and one that stings even more so for a county that came so close to completing five-in-a-row themselves decades ago. However, there are positives to take for the Kingdom, particularly in the young age of their side which now has success in their sights. After the match on Saturday, Peter Keane spoke about how he feels the gap is bridgeable to Dublin. And finally, Malachy Clerkin writes in his Tipping Point column this morning that Dublin's greatest sin is, in fact, making everyone outside the county root for Kerry.
Heading to Japan now and we're less than a week out from Ireland's Rugby World Cup opener and Gerry Thornley writes that Sunday morning's meeting with Scotland in Yokohama is pivotal. Bad weather is expected for the match which could add an element of uncertainty while Robbie Henshaw looks set to miss out. We will have more on that injury to the Leinster man after an Ireland press conference which is scheduled to take place around 7am this morning. One man who will play a key role for Ireland is Bundee Aki and he spoke over the weekend about how welcome he has been in Ireland and how much of a part of the team he feels, despite the criticism for Ireland's number of overseason-born players. Meanwhile, over the weekend Gavin Cummiskey went exploring around Tokyo to see what sort of an impact the tournament is having on the city. In his letter from Japan he writes that the hosts will ideally need a few early scalps to get the locals fully en masse behind them. Don't forget you can follow all of the build-up to Japan with columns, analysis, news, interviews, stats, fixtures and much more on our dedicated 2019 Rugby World Cup site.
Moving to soccer and Ken Early writes this morning that the recent Twitter spat between Michael Owen and Alan Shearer shows that there is some merit to social media these days, at least in comparison to the fearsome tabloid machine which was so prevalent during both players' careers. "We hear plenty about the challenges posed by social media, and the complications for famous football players are obvious, but in some ways at least, what we have now is not as bad as what went before," he writes. Finally, David Sneyd was in Brighton yesterday to see Jeff Hendrick score for Burnley in a game which, he writes, showed the Dubliner and Brighton's Shane Duffy lead the battle against perception.
