Paul Bealin got chatting with a pal recently about winning the All-Ireland with Dublin in 1995 and learned a surprising fact about that season.
Turns out Dublin were relegated from Division One just a few months before lifting Sam.
“I was kind of thinking, ‘Really?’ I’d actually totally forgotten about being relegated in ’95,” said Bealin.
"I won an All-Ireland with Dublin that year and I remember winning the Railway Cup around that time and the National League in 1991 and 1993 but I'd genuinely forgotten we were relegated from Division One. It just shows how much it registered with me."
Context, of course, is everything. It’s easy to write off a relegation, or to forget about it entirely, when you win an All-Ireland immediately afterwards.
Right now, Bealin's 1995 colleague Dessie Farrell and the current under pressure Dublin players don't have that luxury as they find themselves deep in the mire. All-Ireland talk seems fanciful.
Four Division One defeats on the spin, following on from a shaky 2021 season, has left them on the brink of relegation for the first time since that ’95 campaign, the 2008 drop to Division Two being the result of a league restructure.
They have three games left to save their status, starting with Sunday’s trip to Tyrone.
“Because we’ve been so lucky with all the success we’ve had in Dublin over the last 10 or 11 years, an awful lot of teams out there would love to take Dublin’s scalp and send them down to Division Two,” suggested Bealin.
“They would love nothing more than to do that and you can include Tyrone in that list this weekend.
"I think that will energise Dublin. Like, if you take the Kildare game the last day and the celebrations among Kildare supporters afterwards, Dublin will have seen all that yahooing and high-fiving and that'll definitely be used as motivation going forward."
Selling a positive story may come naturally enough to Bealin, a sales director with BWG Foods, but he is adamant that there is plenty to be upbeat about with Dublin, despite the relegation threat. Truth be told, he isn’t certain they won’t go down but reasons that it won’t be the end of the world if they do.
“It’s still all about the championship,” insisted Bealin.
Dublin have handed competitive game time to 48 different players since the start of 2022, Robbie McDaid and Cillian O’Shea the latest to feature as subs in the loss to Kildare, and Con O’Callaghan still has to return from an ankle injury. Last year – albeit with no O’Byrne Cup campaign and a shorter league – Dublin only used 32 players all year.
"The list of players that Dessie has looked at is long but he's had to open the door," reasoned Bealin. "It's not like when Jim Gavin was there and you could hold a Con O'Callaghan for a year or two and then gradually introduce him.
“I talked to someone who is fairly heavily involved in Dublin underage football two years ago and they said to me, ‘There isn’t a conveyor belt of talent there to replace what we’ve had, it’s just not there’. So you take six or seven great players who all leave and suddenly you’re in a position where you have to start really throwing the net out for new guys.
“Dessie has brought in young players and guys who are seasoned at club level and given them a run and that’s kind of where we’re at.”
Because of that need for transition and experimentation, former midfielder Bealin is supportive of Farrell despite the wretched run of results.
“There are all sorts of conversations you hear around ‘Dessie has to go’ and their answer is always, ‘Sure there are loads of players on the conveyor belt in Dublin’ but that’s the thing, there isn’t anymore, not like-for-like replacements anyway, as people might think,” said Bealin.
For that reason, the former Carlow, Wexford and Westmeath manager agrees that Dublin have inevitably slipped back.
“I don’t think it’s a case that other teams have gotten better, Dublin are just coming back, it’s not the pack getting closer,” maintained Bealin. “That inevitably brings a bit more belief around Leinster and I think for the first time in a long time, Dublin genuinely can’t take Leinster for granted anymore.”
Or Division One football.
"That's true," nodded Bealin. "They have three games left, two away in Ulster, and they're at home to Donegal. It's going to be very, very tough to beat Tyrone first of all and then the other two. They're really up against it now."
