March 11, Pairc Ui Rinn

Myself and Ciara took the bus to Cork. Me, to hopefully see Dublin win and thereby give themselves some chance of qualifying for the play-offs; herself because my uncle Declan and Catherine in Midleton have a sheepdog. Tricksy. I had realised since Christmas that Ciara no longer wished to see the Dubs, or the Dunnies as she used to call them. Maybe, as with her premature retirement from Camogie, her interest will revive with the return of the Summer.

We had great crack on the bus anyway, playing hangman and talking rubbish. When we stopped for the obligatory twenty minutes in Urlingford we also discovered something new to eat. Hot ham and cheese paninis which Ciara duly declared to be 'massive'. Which is as good as it gets, and we promised to get ourselves more on the way back.

The travelling Dubs were there in force. Probably half of the crowd were visitors and a good half of them were three sheets to the wind by the time the match started at 7. There had been a good crowd of them in the pub down the road beforehand as well.

Now most Dubs - contrary to myth - are decent enough characters and actually good crack to be with wherever you meet them. That is possibly more so the case with Dublin GAA followers although perhaps I am being biased here. There are of course the really bad bastards who latch themselves on to the football team during the championship but they are thankfully a small minority, are easily identifiable and thus avoided, and they don't bother with the league.

The main danger, therefore, is in running into the drunken bore, of whom a small but irritating contingent has decided that it must be wherever the Dubs are. Indeed one gets the impression that for some of them, even though they never seem to enjoy the experience - or at least not in the manner that most of us would regard as enjoyment - and are always giving out about the team, that the further and the more they travel and the worse Dublin are the more grimly satisfied they are.

The discerning traveller will be quick to spot them and thus be enabled to employ an effective feinting movement. That is, keep as far away from them as possible. Unfortunately that is not always an immediately available option and so all of us have had to suffer them for at least part of time, some of the time. Not as bad as being a bar man in Navan who might be stuck with a roost of them perched across the counter from him. At least we can always move.

Mind you, Navan barmen have long acquired the knack of dealing with annoying Dubs. In the glorious Summer of '95 I was there when Dublin beat Louth on the way to winning Leinster and the All Ireland. Before the match myself and my sister Teresa and brother Gerard called to one hostelry that was full to bursting with thirsty boys and girls in blue.

It was my round, as usual, and it took me a good five minutes to get within shouting distance of the profusely sweating bar people. The trick then is to catch one of their eyes. Having served before the mast myself, I am well aware of the tricks of the trade and how best not to get served. Foremost of these is to attempt physical contact. Unless the person concerned is a sexually attractive female. This from the barperson's perspective of course. Or male as the case may be. Nor does screaming and brandishing fistful of notes get you anywhere.

So I adopted my usual demure stance and waited patiently. I had manoeuvred myself into a good position as one of the stressed bar chaps came along the azure lines taking orders and slamming on more pints. Almost invariably Guinness. Large bottles of Bulmers with a pint glass of ice being a popular second choice. "Next". This was me. "Two Guinness and a tequila sunrise please". A brief look. "No fuckin chance". And he was gone. Not even the two pints.

I briefly debated with myself as to whether to get Teresa something different but decided that was not the optimum strategy. "Just the two pints then" I roared before he had been seduced by another. Two pints it was. "There's no way you'll get a tequila sunrise Teresa", I told the sister by way of explanation. She surveyed the bar. "Course there is. Same again?" We didn't demure and two minutes later she was back with two more pints. And a tequila sunrise. What can you say.

Worst of all is being stuck on a bus with Dublin bores. The last time that happened to me was travelling to a championship match down the country and being stuck, through no fault of my own, with several of the species. Half way there they had me convinced that we were all wasting our time and that we would be better off getting the bus to turn around and go home. Unfortunately they didn't elect to take that option.

I escaped from them once we had arrived and went in pursuit of more pleasant company. Unfortunately in the course of so doing I ran into another band who persuaded me to accompany them to the pub that was going to be blessed with their presence. We trooped in and marched to the bar where one of their number produced a large trumpet like instrument which he projected over the counter into the bar woman's face, emitting a prolonged hon. Nnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhh. Followed by the ageless chant. "Hill 16 is Dublin only".

The beleaguered bar woman waited patiently with a look of tired bemusement on her face until this had come to an end, allowing the perpetrator to draw breath prior to ordering a pint. Gently pushing the trumpet away, she enquired, "So are you compensating for something?"

I'm not sure what the chaps who we were standing in front of in Pairc Ui Rinn were compensating for, but they were doing so loudly. Myself and Declan decided to move anyway after about ten minutes of listening to them abuse most of the Dublin team in the lingua franca of the sewerage network. Now, I am well able to intersperse my own commentary on sporting occasions with a liberal sprinkling of 'f's' and 'c's' and so on but there is a fine line between the use of expletives for effect and when it just becomes plain tiresome.

Especially when directed in a malicious personal manner towards individuals, and worse again individuals from the team that you have travelled so far and presumably at some expense to support! Why the fuck would you bother? Anyway these chaps, who obviously considered themselves to be both great wits and great judges of the game, managed to create a considerable cordon sanitaire around them. Which I suppose is a reasonably fair tribute to the rest of us!

The shape of the match itself was largely dictated by the conditions. Under the floodlights the grass glistened and it was the Cork players who coped better even though their short passing game would not be the game plan most favoured for the potentially treacherous surface that would normally place a premium on the quick long ball into the forwards. Dublin did essay this, in the manner that had been so effective against Offaly, but it was not as successful. Namely because they failed to establish the kind of dominance down the middle that had been there the previous week. Indeed it was Cork who were on top here for most of the game and this opened up a corridor through which their forwards were able to pour forward. Coming up to half time, Cork led by six points before a goal from Declan Lally put a more respectable gloss on the scoreboard.

Dublin were more in the game in the second half and Whelan began to win a good share of the ball in centre field. He was ably assisted in his task by Denis Bastick and when the teams drew level at eight points a piece, it looked as though the Dubs would come home the stronger.

Unfortunately it was not to be. Cork responded with some nicely taken points and then Bastick's over enthusiasm earned him a second yellow card and a despatch to the sideline. Vaughan was sprung for David O'Callaghan as the clock wound down but it was not a successful gambit. He got two touches, both of which led to the breakdown of threatening Dublin attacks.

I had been watching him warm up and there is little doubt but that the chap pays probably more attention to what is going on off the field than is good for him. The wisdom among the fancy is that he is a 'confidence' player. If the first thing goes right for him, then he can be brilliant. He will then feed off the crowd, in particular the negative reactions of opposing supporters. If his first touch lets him down, he invariably plays badly. So he remains a mystery but one who clearly has the confidence of the Dublin backroom team, and who is well worth persisting with. If he comes right and works on his erroneous zones, he will develop into one of the best Dublin forwards for a long time. You read it here first!

Anyway, time ran out for Dublin and another two valuable points had gone west. Qualification, which had looked almost a certainty that cold Sunday in Omagh, was fast receding beyond the horizon. A long way to come to see them beaten but it had its compensations. And more paninis on the way home at Urlingford.