Moments of the year: Con O’Callaghan was coolness personified

Highlight

In our dream of dreams, we would all do it like this. We would be Con O’Callaghan, the boy prince of Dublin GAA. We would be a minute into our first All-Ireland final, with the game still settling and the nerves jangling all around. We would be the youngest player on the pitch.

We would be playing with house money, unburdened by the expectation placed on our team-mates or the desperation attached to our opponents. We would know that whatever happened, we will end the year in credit. We would be freed by that knowledge.

We wouldn’t be sufficiently old or wizened to know yet that you’re not supposed to try and score a goal with your first involvement in every game you play. We would instead see possession in disarmingly simple terms. Where am I? Where is the goal? What are we waiting for?

And it would all unspool from there. We would make our run into space at the top of the D. Eoghan O'Gara would buy us a little room by changing direction to baulk our marker, Colm Boyle, as he came to track us. Not enough to catch the referee's eye, just enough to provide an extra step out in front to collect and turn and look.

Fintan O’Toole on 2017: The year weird became the new normal

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Moments of the year: Sweet night in Dublin as England’s train derailed

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Moments of the year: Jordan Spieth’s rough magic showed an Open mind

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The planets would align. We would be blessed by the silken-smooth running of the machine around us. Within three steps of turning for home, Paddy Andrews and Dean Rock would have left their markers for dead and dragged them away from the middle of the pitch, opening a lane a canyon wide. Donal Vaughan wouldn't have got his bearings yet as the Mayo sweeper and would be too close to Boyle, close enough that by skinning one for pace, we would skin them both.

Just like that, we’d be in on goal. We’d hop the ball with our left hand, the better to keep it away from Boyle, chasing back on our right. Afterwards, they would say that we took too many steps and maybe we did. It would be none of our concern.

For a finish, we would drop the ball from left hand to right foot, flicking it with the outside of the boot to roll it into the bottom corner. Like it was no big deal at all. The Hill would fizz and we would wheel away, one of the great All-Ireland final goals to our name.

Lowlight

The slide into All-Ireland irrelevance of Ulster football. Eight of the nine northern counties lost a championship game by at least eight points. Tyrone are a street ahead, yet they got undressed by Dublin. If the blanket defence doesn’t win and doesn’t keep the score down, what is it for?