THE microphone sat just six inches from Paul Flynn's chin. It was February - often a time when the most brutal truths are heard.
This was one of those days. Flynn may have spoken quietly, to the extent that his interviewer had to strain his neck and lean slightly forward to capture every word, but one comment still echoes around our heads months on.
“If you look back on the whole season, we were the best team,’’ Flynn said about Dublin in 2014. “We played the best football, but we just didn’t win the Championship.
“I don’t know how many times you see that in any different code of sport.
“In American football, for instance, the Patriots won the Super Bowl, but maybe there was a team who played really well all throughout the season who could have won it too.”
No one doubts that Dublin could have won last year's Championship. Plenty, however, wonder whether they will do it this year. Exposed as tactically naive against Donegal in last year's All-Ireland semi-final, they have spent the spring experimenting with new formations and personnel.
They have done so with some success. Tomas Brady, the former hurler, has emerged as a genuine star and while Eoghan O'Gara's loss will be sorely felt - given how his athleticism and power offered Jim Gavin an avenue his other forwards cannot provide - they remain a real force, alongside Kerry.
Mayo rank third and while Donegal and Cork cannot be written off, nor can they be talked up. Meanwhile everyone else can be forgotten about. Thirty-three runners may have gone to post in this season's All-Ireland Football Championship, which kicked off in New York last Sunday, but only five matter.
Or it is only two teams who REALLY count? Are Dublin and Kerry that far ahead of the pack?
It is beginning to look that way which is hard to imagine when you remember where Kerry were just over a year ago, losing a League game to Cork by 10 points, on a day when dozens of their supporters headed for the exit gates in Austin Stack Park with 15 minutes still on the clock.
Written off in April, by September they were All-Ireland champions for the 37th time.
“People talk about tradition, and that goes a long way,’’ Darran O'Sullivan said. “Because once you’re thrown that jersey, there is a proud tradition behind it. Some fellas grow with it, some fellas shrink.
“We’re lucky enough that the fellas that came in grew in that jersey. They made it their own. We came in under the radar a bit, but a lot of it was down to self-belief. We had full confidence in ourselves. If people were doubting us, we let them doubt away.”
Bernard Brogan. Photo: INPHO.Among the doubters were some of their own, former Kerry skipper Dara O Cinneide expressing concerns about Eamonn Fitzmaurice's side as early as February last year.
“Right now, you'd look around the dressing-room and there is a shortage of long term proven Championship performers,’’he said. "They're the vital part of it, really, the players who have gone beyond being newcomers but are around the panel for three, four, five years - the likes of Shane Enright and Anthony Maher.
"They've been playing, been giving starting places but, really, they need to start grabbing ownership of the team at this stage.”
By the summer they did.
“We have been blessed with the leaders we have,’’ O'Sullivan said. “When I came into the team, there were eight or nine fellas you’d count as leaders. Now, David Moran has stepped up. Peter Crowley too. Mikey Geaney broke in and did very well.
“James O’Donoghue took on extra responsibility and did brilliantly. It’s always someone’s turn. It’ll be the same this year. Someone else will stand up.”
Who will stand up for Dublin, though? Winners in 2011 and 2013, the core of those sides remain. And while their tactical approach may have been abysmal against Donegal last year, their mindset remains strong.
A lot of that has to do with Pat Gilroy's management. Mickey Whelan was a selector with the Dubs when he and Gilroy transformed from a mentally brittle outfit, who lost by 17 points to Kerry in the 2009 All-Ireland quarters, into a team who triumphed two years later.
He was there in Killarney in 2010 when they beat Kerry in the League, their first victory over their rivals since 1998, their first in Kerry since 1982. A year later they won again, this time in the All-Ireland final, their first Championship win against Kerry since 1977.
Since losing that 2009 quarter-final, Dublin hold a six-two advantage over Kerry in head-to-heads. "We inherited a team so we had to find our feet, look out there and see what was around the county,’’ said Whelan.
"That game against Kerry (in 2009) was a terrible letdown. We knew we needed to change the mental profile of the team. We had to find out if they had the steel. It was a process. Lots of guys came in and out, but that's the way it is with a team. We targeted certain matches. We were looking for resolve from certain players.”
And they got it. The core of the men they found, read the riot act to, or handed extra responsibility to - Michael Darragh Macauley, Philly McMahon, Denis Bastick, Michael Fitzsimons, Rory O'Carroll, Kevin McManamon, and Cian O'Sullivan - kicked on under his watch. And they're still around. So too, of course, is Bernard Brogan, who Gilroy took to one side and criticised for being too selfish.
Now he is more of a team player and Dublin, as a consequence, are more of a threat. Plus they have Diarmuid Connolly and Ciaran Kilkenny - a deeper pool than any other team in the country. Can they be stopped?
Kerry will think so. And James Horan also has a high opinion of the side who conquered the Mayo team he managed in last year's All-Ireland semi-final. "To me, the story of Kerry since last year's All-Ireland quarter-finals centres on David Moran," Horan wrote in his Irish Daily Star column. "He is one of the best two footballers in the country and for all the changes in Gaelic football in recent times, midfield is still vital.
"And one of Kerry's great area of strengths is the midfield pairing of Moran and Anthony Maher. Maher is 6'6 and Moran 6'4, and they are formidable athletes and footballers. David has all the skills. Can work off both sides. Both of them are two-footed which is very unusual in men of that size. They do the bread and butter stuff of midfielders too. You have to rate Kerry's chances very highly as a result."
Former Mayo manager James Horan. Photo: INPHO.And what of Cork? "The honest answer is that nobody knows," wrote Horan "and we won't know until they go to Killarney to take on Kerry in the Championship.
"Brian Cuthbert tried out different things with Cork last year, especially in defence. But the players' understanding of each other, and what they were supposed to be doing, didn't look that strong.
"I think they're a bit more comfortable with the game-plan now and, in Colm O'Neill, they have a class forward who's back to his best."
Aidan O'Shea is also back to his best with Mayo. He, along with Moran, is the player Horan ranks as one of Ireland's two standout stars. But can he, and Mayo, forget about their near misses over the last four years?
"Yes," says Horan, "because players live in the moment.
"They don't spend their days poring over YouTube clips of past defeats and victories. The mantra is always the same: next game, next game. I don't believe there's any kind of psychological hangover with this bunch of players."
Instead, they have tinkered with their style over the spring. Their half-backs hold their positions more than they would have under Horan. Additionally, Diarmuid O'Connor and Jason Doherty drop deep to offer support, turning Mayo's back six into a back eight.
In terms of personnel, Andy Moran is back, Alan Dillon believes he has another campaign in him, Tom Parsons is available and new guys, Diarmuid O'Connor, Patrick Durca,n and Stephen Coen have emerged.
Don't rule them out. Nor Donegal.
They have changed their approach under Rory Gallagher, seeking to find Michael Murphy and Paddy McBrearty with earlier, more direct ball. The old days of defend, defend, and defend some more are no longer as visible. Some psychological scars need to be erased, the Kerry defeat last September being one of them.
"Last year's All-Ireland final...the whole thing was a bit of an anti-climax," said Rory Kavanagh, who retired shortly afterwards. "I think we did still make a lot of progress last year, maybe people don’t look at that aspect of it.
“Like, a lot of people didn’t even think we’d win Ulster. Some were saying we wouldn’t even win the first Championship game.
"So to win Ulster and then to go all the way to the All-Ireland final, you have to reflect and see that as a progressive season. But maybe we underestimated Kerry."
No one will make that mistake in 2015. Nor will they suggest Dublin are finished. Those two are likeliest to be the last men standing come September.
See More: Comment & Analysis, Croke Park, Dublin, Featured, GAA, Kerry
