LockerRoom:Under the new lights in Croker on Saturday there was some novelty and there was a little of the old déjà vu. On a crisp night filled with celebration and possibility Dublin and Tyrone each test-drove a few new players and each ended up at a familiar destination.

Dublin lost a lead. Just as they did against Mayo last summer (seven points), against Tyrone in the drawn quarter-final the year before (five points), against Armagh in 2003 (four points and a man).

When a game was tight at the death as with, say, Westmeath in the summer of 04 or Armagh in 02, Dublin failed to put matters to rest. That's a pattern.

Odd that Dublin have developed this way. Back in 2001 and those quarter-final games with Kerry they fell behind each time but finished each day attacking frenziedly. That first afternoon in Thurles they overhauled an eight-point lead within a few minutes and Maurice Fitzgerald needed to make a withdrawal on his genius account to save Kerry. The next day the clock saved the Kingdom.

It seemed back then it would only be a matter of time before Dublin learned, as Armagh would, how to close the deal in a big game. All this time on, that remains the one thing Dublin really need to prove themselves at: finishing out.

Saturday night was notable in all sorts of ways but beyond the hoopla and razzmatazz it was obvious the Dubs, while they will start in the upper echelon of favourites for the championship, have a way to go before they can be considered among the elite.

Dublin played (as Kerry have done with Paul Galvin when playing Tyrone), with their right half forward sweeping back in defence. It was a big ask of a young player like Derek Murray, who is no Galvin when it comes to aggression, but it looked at least like a decent tactical idea.

In the second half, though, when Tyrone stepped up the pace and intensity and the game began to resemble summer football Dublin looked full of heart but short of ideas.

Nothing the sideline tried worked. Switches, substitutions and calling the short free at the end. There didn't seem to be any leaders on the field to pull the game out of the fire. Tyrone with, among others, Brian Dooher, Brian McGuigan and Stephen O'Neill all missing, operated smoothly and young lads like Seán Cavanagh and Owen Mulligan took the match by the scruff of the neck. Every substitution Mickey Harte made brought something extra to the table.

A long time ago Dr Pat O'Neill, when asked about a batch of new whizz kids being hatched down in Meath, replied that at that point he had seen the kids but he hadn't seen the whizz. The same might have been said about Raymond Mulgrew last summer. On Saturday night his second point was sublime and seemed to copperfasten his position in a Tyrone forward line which at times looked as if it could play with blindfolds on.

That wasn't the only difference, though. There's a difference in the demeanour of this Dublin team and this Tyrone team. Dublin have a paranoia about the media and some people connected with the team affect a sort of offhand smartass approach in dealing with the press. Which is annoying but fine; that's their right.

Tyrone though exude a deep self-confidence which can't be unconnected with the conviction they display when they take the field. Tyrone's players and management will talk to anyone. There's no mystery about how they train. No paranoia. Just a belief that what they are doing is the way to win matches.

If a team think they can win big matches in the heat of the last 10 minutes because of anything which might have been written about them in a newspaper then they probably just can win matches in the last 10 minutes. It's not a media thing, just an example. What welds a team together is coming through real crisis points together. You can't force that sort of unity.

Dublin are in a tricky position as they face into the year ahead. Whereas Tyrone know deep in their hearts that they can continue their pattern of winning the All-Ireland every second year, and they know that the conveyor belt and infirmary room will deepen their pool and strengthen their team, Dublin just have to have faith.

There's a difference between knowledge and faith and you find it in the crucible at the high point of a big game.

Dublin know they can win Leinster, although Meath, Laois, Longford and Offaly will all be better teams this year, one suspects. Dublin don't know that they can win the All-Ireland. They believe they can.

This nagging inability to close the deal though? They don't know if it's a management thing or a player thing or just a luck thing.

A friend said to me something during the week which made me think that county boards should adopt a simple rule of thumb when appointing county managers. Can you picture the applicant for the position of county manager as an All-Ireland-winning manager?

There used to be a lot of guff spoken about the cult of the manager: when it started, who it started with and how it detracted from the players, etc, etc. The fact is, though, you might win an All-Ireland with an ordinary team but you won't win one with an ordinary manager.

That applies to Gaelic games more than any professional sport. In football and hurling every member of your large panel goes off after every match to the real world, to clubs and workplaces and public houses where opinion about the county manager is freely expressed. Your players aren't cossetted. You need to be a strong character just to hold their attention.

So if you were chairman of a county board the simple rule for appointing a manager would be to close your eyes and see if you can picture the applicant's face fitting in along the line of All-Ireland-winning managers of the last 20 years or so.

Is the character sitting in front of you earnestly babbling about body-fat ratios and the philosophy of the tackle possessed of the temperament, intellect, and intuition of a Jack O'Connor, a Mickey Harte, a Joe Kernan, a John O'Mahony or a Seán Boylan - or a Páidí or a Billy Morgan?

When you close your eyes and visualise Croke Park filled to the brim on a sunny day and a game on the line with 15 minutes left do you see the man in front of you as being filled with the self-belief and calm that enable him not just to serenely peer into the smoke and chaos of battle but to make the right calls there and then?

Dublin continued their new tradition of walking to the Hill like a band of brothers on Saturday night. And the Hill continued its new reciprocal deal of being absolutely no help to the team when the going got rough.

That symbolises the problem. There are things which top-level sport reveals about people which you can understand only when you are up there in the rare air. To the rest of us it is a mystery. In the Dublin dressingroom after all these years on the shoulder of the summit, does Pillar Caffrey look at his squad and wonder is it them or is it him? Do they look at Pillar Caffrey and wonder the same thing?

Hindsight is wonderful, of course. Any manager who wins an All-Ireland just assumes the aura of an All-Ireland-winning manager. If Pillar gets over the line this year we will look back over the last few years and see a learning curve. If he doesn't make it we'll argue as to whether it was Pillar or the team that couldn't handle the altitude.

Meanwhile, you look at Dublin and imagine they need a transfusion of boldness, self-belief, swagger and leadership. They need to find a character who will give them what Kieran Donaghy gave Kerry last year, not just great hands and height but enough exuberance to carry everyone along and to remind everyone of the joy of playing.

An Owen Mulligan or a Benny Tierney is just as important as a McGeeney or a Moynihan or a Dooher.

Under the bright lights the Dubs could find neither.