GAELIC GAMES/ All-Ireland SFC 4th round qualifiers: By tea-time it was back to the future. Dublin had done away with Roscommon and Tyrone had made Laois disappear. We were looking forward again. The word was through.

The All-Ireland quarter-final draw brought evocative news. Dublin would play Kerry. Thirty years after Heffo made the renaissance the fixture still has a lovely magic to it. Dublin versus Kerry. Even the words seem to scan together.

Dublin. Kerry.

So Dublin know and Kerry know whichever side ends their season when they play, there won't be any ignominy attached. And whoever proceeds will be respected. It's about salvage and credibility.

In Croke Park yesterday Dublin finished the last of the compulsory exercises inflicted upon them as punishment for losing to Westmeath.

They saw off a big, game Roscommon team with four points to spare, thus emphatically reclaiming their right to be considered a big-time team, albeit one just outside the list of ranked contenders.

Roscommon will wonder why they neglected to pick a few players capable of putting a ball into a net. Had they done so the rather less alluring prospect of Kerry and Roscommon would be dangling in front of Dublin's followers now.

Instead Roscommon go home from Croke Park with yet another creditable performance under their belt. As Tom Carr said: "We have to stop equating creditable performances with accomplishments. They're not the same."

Carr is right but the Dublin dressing-room wouldn't necessarily agree with him. Dublin have strung together four creditable performances to get to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. That in itself, they would argue, is an accomplishment.

Having finished last season riven by arguments and begun this season looking weak and divided, they have managed to get to August and find themselves as far along in the race as any other county.

"We're in the quarter-finals," said Tommy Lyons, regaining some of his old ebullience afterwards. "And we're in the same position as Westmeath are in and everyone else are in.

"That's what the back door is for. You either take it . . . sure. I can't give out about the draws we got. Ye guys think a manager should always bring a bit of luck to the table. We had a bit of luck in 2002 and it took off. Maybe our season has turned. Maybe it hasn't."

It was a day filled with ironies and a few sadnesses. Dessie Farrell came on as a substitute but went over on his knee early. The early prognosis was grim and an injury so late in his career makes it unlikely we'll see Farrell's lovely brand of football on the big stage again.

"Dessie deserves all the accolades," said Carr afterwards. "From a football point of view and a personal point of view. He's a great human being."

"Dessie went over on the knee" said Lyons, "and straight away he knew something went. It doesn't sound good."

Carr and Lyons will have appreciated three years ago it was an All-Ireland quarter-final against Kerry which put an end to the Carr era. In his third year as manager Lyons now gets the same challenge. The good news for him is the form of some of his forwards and the momentum Dublin have established.

Jason Sherlock scored 1-4 from play yesterday and if the points were good it was the goal which jogged the memory. Through, one-on-one with the goalkeeper, he finished with calm and then came wheeling away in such a way that if the Hill hadn't been empty you'd have sworn it was 1995 all over again.

Better than that though was the return to excellence of Ian Robertson. He was the only forward not to score for Dublin yesterday but his contribution, especially in the second half, was subtle and influential and one pass in particular, that to Sherlock for his third point of the day, was sublime.

The negatives for Dublin are the thought that Kerry's forwards might not be as wayward as Roscommon's.

And the still unfilled role of free-taker on the Dublin team. All that is fodder for later, however.

It was a funny old day in Croke Park. Call it a miscalculation in scheduling or an over-zealous application of the rules of etiquette but the team who brought the most customers were playing in the curtain-raiser.

So although 63,069 paid in and most of them were in their seats for the last quarter of the Dublin-Roscommon game, the majority were gone for the second half of the Tyrone versus Laois game.

Which made it all quite surreal to begin with. Throw in the fact that the game was virtually over after 15 minutes, that Tyrone scored two own goals in the second half and that this was a Mick O'Dwyer team we saw being so easily beaten and it all added to a bizarre occasion which nevertheless managed to be dull.

Owen Mulligan suckered Laois with a soft goal early on and Mark Harte paid his way with two well-taken goals either side of half-time but even that didn't compel people to come back and watch.

In an odd twist, both Tyrone corner backs ended up turning Laois shots into their own net. First Michael McGee then Ryan McMenamin. If you'd told either of his fate on Saturday night he'd have dreaded Sunday. As it was nobody really cared.

For their troubles Tyrone now get to play Mayo in the quarter-final. As word seeped through to the Tyrone officials there were shrugged shoulders and looks of indifference. In this era of Northern dominance things have changed.