GAELIC GAMES CHAMPIONSHIP 2010:MAYBE IT is the World Cup. The GAA championship is motoring along nicely but it always takes something special to light the torch paper.

Usually it is Dublin. Be it their demise or their goals. This year no one expects much from them. They are even telling us they will not win an All-Ireland. Wexford should have beaten them.

The similarities between England at the World Cup and Dublin football travails are uncanny.

The expectation always seems to exceed the evidence to hand. Then they win with panache and momentum is surpassed by hype.

Alan Brogan has been at the centre of the maelstrom since 2002. Now in his ninth season, he has never played in an All-Ireland final. Neither has he ever lost to Meath in the championship.

If Dublin win on Sunday, the Algeria performance (I mean Wexford) can be shelved.

“We spent a bit of time looking back at what had gone wrong in the first 40 minutes,” said Brogan. “But you’re always looking to take positives out of it and there hasn’t been too many Dublin teams that have turned over seven-point leads in championship games.

“It’s not rocket science. We gave away too much space in the first half and stood off them. When you do that in Croke Park you end up with a piggy-in-the-middle situation and chasing shadows. Chasing shadows in Croke Park can get very tiring very quickly. I don’t think it was a case of our work rate being down or us being complacent, we just hadn’t done what we were told to do and when you concede space like that you are going to find yourself under pressure.

“We didn’t perform in the first half and it wasn’t good enough but thankfully we had the wherewithal to sort it out.”

Dublin were criticised in recent seasons for the way they lined out. For being defensively frail. Pat Gilroy has made no secret of the need to tighten up with a new system that squeezes opposition from the half-forward line backwards.

“Guys are getting hung up on this whole system thing. It’s literally just a case of trying to get the ball back as quick as we can and we didn’t do that in the first half.”

He attributed the fightback to Conal Keaney and his brother Bernard taking the game by the “scruff of the neck”, something that won’t be enough on Sunday.

Meath?

“I’ve seen a few clips but we know them very well. Going forward they are very strong, they have three or four top-class forwards. I went to college with Joe Sheridan and I know how good he is; he is a handful for anyone on any day. If Stephen Bray rediscovers the kind of form that won him an All Star he’ll cause trouble and then you have Cian Ward and Shane O’Rourke who are very dangerous as well.

“Cian Ward is a top-class free taker as we saw a few years ago in one of the drawn games so we don’t want to be giving away too many frees. They have a few injuries, Anthony Moyles is carrying one, not sure how he is. They are two very evenly matched teams and it could go either way on Sunday.

“Dublin-Meath are always big games. Meath will fancy their chances and we will fancy our chances.”

Dublin versus Meath. Anyone for a draw?