Flynn Says Meath Loss Proves Dublin's Dominance Was Never Only About Money

For the first time since 2010, a team other than Dublin will be Leinster champions, after Meath's superb victory in Portlaoise on Sunday afternoon.

Robbie Brennan's Royal charges came firing out of the blocks in the semi-final clash and led by a huge 12 points by half-time in O'Moore Park.

Though Dublin responded after the break, they could not do enough to claw back the sizeable deficit, and Meath took a famous three-point win to send their travelling supporters into raptures.

Last summer's All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Galway was one thing for the Dubs, but a first Leinster championship defeat in 15 years will do far more to damage their standing among the favourites to lift Sam Maguire.

This team is a shell of that which claimed the 2023 All-Ireland, with the wealth of experience from Michael Fitzsimons, James McCarthy, Jack McCaffrey, John Small, and Paul Mannion all lost to Dessie Farrell.

However, to many rival fans, it has been hard to sympathise with Dublin's drop in performance, with many having attributed their dominance of the 2010s to their vast funding advantage over their direct rivals, particularly those in Leinster.

READ HERE: John Heslin Flags Inconvenient Truth About Meath's Win Over Dublin

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Speaking on Monday's episode of Second Captains, Dublin legend Paul Flynn argued that Meath's dramatic win on Sunday only proved that the perennial success of the Dubs in the 2010s was never just down to money.

Flynn argued that the lack of quality on show in blue on Sunday showed that the huge financial backing of Dublin GAA had only played some part in their six-in-a-row success. The four-time All-Star said that the All-Ireland success had more to do with a rare burst of generational talent than it did with the county's funding advantage over their rivals.

I think when Dublin were in that dominating period, there was probably a sense that people felt it was purely down to demographics, purely down to population, purely down to money. I'm not sure it was fully...it was just a generational panel of players that came through. The same money is there for the hurlers.

[Money] helps in every sport - but it wasn't the reason that you brought this generational team together.

The money is there, the population is growing, the money's still there because we've got more sponsors in, so where are they now?

No-one is doubting [you're in a better position with Dublin's funding]. But my point was that I think people put it down to only that. I often felt that, when this period passed, when something like what happened yesterday happens...time will probably look back on that panel a little more favourably. They'll see that we're going to go through a pretty tough patch, I think - not that many are going to care outside of Dublin.

From a Dublin perspective...you're not seeing minor teams being competitive...there has been a deficit in the quality coming through, the pipeline is no longer there. There's many reasons for that but I'm just highlighting that now there might be a sense that this isn't going to go on forever and maybe people felt like it was going to for a period of time there.

He got some sympathy from Monaghan icon Conor McManus alongside him.

"The same demographic and money is there as it was 10 or 15 years ago," McManus mused.

Nonetheless, Flynn is unlikely to find too much agreement outside of Dublin.

For the Dubs, this season is about recovery from here. Dessie Farrell's team are through to the All-Ireland series but their position as 3rd seeds means they could be placed in a "group of death" with the likes of Kerry and Donegal.