Dessie reign at crossroads as Mayo challenge looms

How stand things with the Dessie Farrell regime?

After months of low-intensity fare against mostly Division 2 teams - except for Roscommon and Derry, the latter of whom were, like Dublin, only nominally second tier - the Dubs brace themselves for the whirlwind intensity of their greatest foils of the past decade. The Jimmy Whites to their Stephen Hendry.

The blissful cockiness of the Hill 16 contingent is heavily ingrained at this point but some are surely concerned that the team aren't exactly primed for these battle conditions yet.

For Farrell's managerial reign, it feels like a critical moment.

After the 2021 semi-final defeat, their first championship loss in seven years, he invoked the lean years and expressed confidence that Dublin supporters would show "patience" in the years ahead. Might a quarter-final defeat at the end of humdrum season prompt a clamour for change?

A hero of the '95 All-Ireland win - in retrospect one of the most important in Dublin's history - Dessie's image since taking over has been one of humble custodian rather than managerial svengali, a la Jim McGuinness.

Assuming the position at the end of 2019, Farrell, a multiple All-Ireland winning manager at Under-21 level, was the natural successor but was placed in an invidious position.

His predecessor Jim Gavin had unkindly left precisely zero room for improvement. Dessie's '95 team-mate departed with the mythical five-in-a-row achieved and as close to a perfect managerial reign as is possible after seven years in charge.

Even Mick O'Dwyer, the manager who presided over the only comparable dynasty in Gaelic football, had departed in 1989 with Kerry football already in recession after three successive Munster championship losses to Cork.

The old Brian