The makers of The Dubs:

Story of a Season faced a similar problem. Having taken a punt on Dublin being there or thereabouts in the football championship when the leaves started falling, they documented their progress throughout the season. As we know, Tyrone softened their cough at the quarter-final stage and you'd imagine that any attempt by director Dave Berry to mock up an All Ireland final appearance using stock footage of Dublin v Armagh and Dublin v Kerry wouldn't have been received well by the GAA community at large.

Still, the fact that there was some dramatic lines still to come when the Dubs exited stage left didn't hamper the story too much.

First of all, if you were picking a team with the benefit of hindsight to follow throughout the year, Pillar and the boys would be prime candidates. Tyrone, of course, were the story of the year but their journey would probably necessitate Peter Jackson and an extended edition box set.

And Dublin were prettier.

They provided glamour from the kick-off while Tyrone and Armagh were still negotiating the Mordor that is the Ulster championship.

Dublin get the crowd and the sunshine. The maxim that the GAA needs a successful Dublin team is untrue, but everyone has to accept that the season is a hell of a lot brighter for them being there.

They inevitably have a persecution complex. As one fan said during the piece: "Everyone likes to see the Dubs lose, don't they?".

It's not as simple as that though. There are echoes of England in a World Cup for a lot of people outside the pale. We secretly hate to see them go but we love to watch them leave.

Every game Dublin played in the championship, after overcoming Longford in the opening round, was wildly entertaining at times.

And they were all in Croke Park. The big house on Jones's Road is clearly Berry's muse, and some of the vignettes he conjured from the season were breathtaking.

An uncanny knack of picking up key moments from all angles was coupled with an excellent sense of what will work in running.

For example, when Stephen O'Shaughnessy popped his shoulder against Wexford a camera was dispatched to follow the trolley that carted him off into the bowels of the stadium, where he and his mother sobbed in a medical room, seemingly in a different world from the giddy clamour just a few metres away.

Paul Caffrey, in his debut season as manager, would have been expected to be centre stage. But while he bookended the hour, this was not his show. This wasn't Marooned. He came across as a passionate, focused man, whose dressing-room and trainingpitch speeches were heartfelt, if a little stilted due to inexperience. But players played for him, and while there were no gratuitous platitudes from squad members, one got the sense that Pillar had managed to forge a genuine team from the ashes left by Tommy Lyons.

The centrepiece was the Leinster final. Dublin dominated the first half but then Ross Munnelly stepped up to drag Laois into the lead entering the closing minutes. Dublin won a free in the final minute of normal time, a point down. Mossy Quinn stood, ran up. Stop. Next we saw Portmarnock, and heard Caffrey's voice. He had lost his mother-in-law the previous day after a short illness. Caffrey felt that she was watching down the next day as Quinn, also from Portmarnock, kicked the vital frees that beat Laois.

In the wrong hands, this could have been horribly mawkish, but Caffrey's credible, matter-of-fact delivery and Berry's gift for spectacle turned it into something genuinely uplifting.

After that, the highlights started to emanate from the opposition. Instead of the bleached head of Mark Vaughan, we had the bleached head of Eoin Mulligan. The nation got a replay and a flicker of an audacious comeback out of Dublin and then waved them goodbye as Tyrone marched on. This was all beautifully delivered, if a little quickly. An hour clearly couldn't contain what the makers were trying to do, and some of the behind-the-scenes footage seemed rushed. An extended version is apparently in the pipeline, and would provide welcome breathing space.

Minor faults though.

We've seen all this epic Croke Park stuff before of course, as this is the production team that brought us the Final Words documentaries these past couple of years. But there's nothing wrong with becoming accustomed to excellence.