So Tommy Lyons and the Dublin footballers head off into the vast mysterious ghetto of the qualifier series. Many teams have embarked on that journey but few have set out with such surprised looks on their faces. Posh and Becks unrecognised.

There should have been a health warning. With Meath beheaded on Saturday night, thoughts in the megalopolis had turned to the pleasures of winning a handy Leinster title and then girding the loins for a later summer campaign. Louth had been comfortably trimmed. Leinster contained only tyros.

The living was easy.

Instead this Monday morning is be filled with reproach. Dublin weren't just beaten in Croke Park yesterday they were outplayed, outthought, outfought and out the gate before they realised what had hit them. Is there nothing in the folk memory that could have warned them? No shiver sprinting down the spine when the name Mick O'Dwyer is mentioned? People like the Dublin swagger but people love seeing a swaggering man go arse over tit on a banana skin.

This was the day which Laois have been promising themselves for some time now. Since the heady days of the minor All-Ireland victories rumours and anecdotes had been swimming out of Laois like stale beer down a drain. Various promising careers were in various states of dereliction. This lad would never play for the county again because he hadn't a mind to. That lad would never play again because he hadn't the talent anymore.

And then Mick O'Dwyer arrived last autumn and they went as quiet as a classroom of frightened kids. Emerged for a league final where they looked flat but nonplussed by the fact. And came to Croke Park yesterday ready to explode.

"Satisfaction?" said Mick O'Dwyer afterwards, his grey mop sufficient reminder he was enjoying big days here when Satisfaction was a hit.

"Everytime I come to Croke Park and win a game is satisfaction. I love coming here."

He was being discreet. There is nothing better for Micko than coming here and beating Dublin. Putting a torpedo into the showboat. Stealing the top hat. Taking the throne.

There was something eerily familiar about the nature of this coup. A young hungry team, one of those collectives that will run through walls if asked, bursting out onto Croke Park. Their play drawing from the stands, the immense guttural thunder of anticipation and approval. The implacability of the score-taking. Not since the Kerry dances of nigh on 30 years has Micko had such good young forwards to deal with.

They rapped 16 points over the bar yesterday and what impressed all and sundry was the manner in which they kept scoring even when the going got tough. Fifteen minutes left and Munnelly, Lawlor and Delaney strung together three quick scores to stretch the Laois lead to five points.

Dublin's desperation was a living thing by now. Alan Brogan replied. 57,615 people moved forward in their seats. You want young guns, said Laois however, we got young guns. Beano McDonald slung one over. So Mossy Quinn had a Dublin free. Ross Munnelly cancelled it out with one of his own seconds later. And so on. When Quinn (again) and Collie Moran closed the gap to three points Laois gave Dublin a timely wallop to the psyche. Padraig Clancy landed a huge point from 50 metres out and shook his fist at the stands. All over bar the shouting. Kildare await Laois in the final.

Laois won't demur when most of the post-match chatter centres on Dublin. Beating the blues in their own backyard has always looked a little too much for Laois in recent decades no matter how good a team they had. It is natural in the circumstances.

Tommy Lyons, the Dublin manager, will do the post mortem stuff quietly at training tonight. Publicly he encouraged the world to look at Laois and admire.

"I felt if we got it back level we would have won it. You couldn't take anything away from Laois. They were going over from every angle. We didn't compete in the middle third. I thought at half time we were still in with a chance.

"We knew we'd get a run. We were going to have to drop over two or three scores in a row. Anytime we scored though they did."

So the times are a changing. Dublin bowing in admiration. Laois swaggering a little themselves. And why not with the fears gone and the bogey laid?