Actually, Dublin didn't beat Meath. Mark Vaughan, a young, relatively untested and somewhat underdeveloped Dublin footballer, was responsible for that piece of work.

Now, before anyone starts crying and shouting about Hayes being mean and begrudging and hating The Dubsf I'm not going to listen to that talk. I'm a little tired at this stage of some old Dublin footballers and nearly all of the present-day players belly-aching about how everyone's against them and how hard and unfair life is in that big blue dressing room.

That's nonsense.

The vast majority of Gaelic football fans in the country have a great respect and deep affection for the Dublin football team and, like any good reality TV show, we're all . . . or nearly all . . . fascinated by them.

I am too. I love the Dublin football team, I love what they represent and I love the jersey.

There are four Dublin jerseys in my home . . . and all four were worn last Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all day long and through the night in some cases. And I'm immensely proud of my sons and my teenage daughter when I walk down the street with them as they're shoulderto-shoulder in blue.

'BLUE AND BLUE' Those three words were spoken by a Dublin football fan who found himself in Navan one night in the middle of a Meath victory party after the Leinster final 19 years ago.

We were all in The Beechmount Hotel which has long since closed its doors and this supporter in a poor man's Arnott's jersey (remember when the sponsor's name looked as though it had been stuck on with lettering bought in a corner shop? ) was surrounded by a group of Meath footballers.

He was at the end of a long night. We were all beginning a long night and one of our party asked the wobbling, brightly-smiling, badly-misplaced football supporter why on earth he would want to be a Dublin fan?

He looked around at us suspiciously and circled around as best he could without spilling his drink, then finally he gave up and we thought he wasn't going to say anything at allf And then he raised his glassf 'BLUE AND BLUE', he exclaimed.

And every glass in our group, respectfully, was raised back at him.

It must be absolutely fantastic to be a Dublin player, fan or manager. I've certainly got no sympathy for any of them. Just once, I'd love to have worn that jersey. And there's not a footballer in the country right now, I dare say, who would not feel deeply honoured and privileged to run out onto the field at Croke Park with the Dublin football team.

Even with the Dublin football team of 2007. Which brings us back to last Sunday's game . . . and the drawn game before that . . . and a few words I provided for these pages in between the two fixtures about the Meath team of 2007. These weref Cian Ward's massive role is, funny enough, the most disturbing aspect of Meath's entire performance. In real life, and on really good football teams, substitutes should not have to do such things.

Meath's performance in the drawn game was founded on a fairly porous substance and once it had become apparent that they needed to rely on a young, fresh-faced substitute (dragged about 100 yards from left field) to singlehandedly earn a draw by scoring five late points then everyone had every reason to be deeply worried about the outcome of the replay.

Vaughan, admittedly, was not a substitute and did start for Dublin last Sunday but it should have been a case of sleepless nights all round for Paul Caffrey, Dave Billings, Brian Talty, Ciaran Duff and everyone else on the Dublin sideline once a four-point victory was toasted and this young man's eight-point haul started to sink in. Over the last couple of years I've regularly wondered on this page where Vaughan was in the great scheme of things in the dressing room and why the Dublin management was not investing in him for the future by giving him all the playing time his young career demanded?

On more than one occasion I've written that a gang of us should work up a search party and go find him for Caffrey.

Suddenly, Vaughan is an eight-point match-winner? In my view, we have to conclude one of two thingsf 1. Over the last three years the Dublin management team has been slowly and meticulously working on Vaughan and tweaking his undoubted talent . . . waiting and waiting and waiting to unleash him on the championship at exactly the right moment, orf 2. Vaughan defiantly, but a little blindly, had his name put on the starting lineup with a prayer attached to it.

You all know which conclusion I've arrived at. After two-and-a-half years there is no evidence of Dublin having advanced any more than a couple of steps . This panel is still a carbon copy of the Dublin side we saw in the summer of 2005 when Vaughan, funnily enough, scored two fantastic points in the defeat of Meath in the first round of the Leinster championship.

After that, Vaughan disappeared in a puff of smoke and now he's back as an eight-point hero in a four-point victory.

If I was a Dublin supporter, footballer or team manager I'd be hellishly nervous living with that reality to life in Croker seven days ago.

It's not good, it's not healthy and neither is it believable to expect Vaughan to link up with Alan Brogan and Conal Keaney and lead Dublin the whole way to the final days of September.

The young man has a rare ability and was worth the admission money alone last Sunday . . . which was just as well since the game itself was wickedly poor when assessed against an A to Z of Gaelic football's skill sets.

Vaughan's got great feet, he's got attitude and . . . most of all and unlike the remainder of the Dublin football team . . .

he genuinely doesn't care what you or I think about anything. I'd watch him all afternoon and himself and Keaney are probably as capable a twin strikeforce on the inside line as any two players in the country.

With Brogan a master at breaking down defences, Dublin can go toe-to-toe with Kerry, Tyrone or Armagh on a good or bad day. But that's my problem. If this Dublin team had been built up with real thought and handled with care and a real sense of confidence over the last two-and-a-half years, then maybe these three footballers would be ready, here and now, to make this summer their own.

Personally, I don't see any of these three incredibly talented young lads in a position, individually or collectively, to take that great responsibility in their hands. For starters, I'm not too sure they even know their positions and what they've really got to do if Dublin are to win the All Ireland title this year. Alan Brogan should have been playing an orthodox role from centre-forward for the last three or four years.

That's where Brogan should be going to work every single Sunday and inside of him Keaney and Vaughan and Tomas Quinn should have a minimum target of eight-to-10 points between them every day. With the three of them standing up and demanding to be counted and with Brogan working up and down the centre and Colin Moran and whoever else winning lots and lots of breaking ball, a great deal of the uncertainty and downright fear surrounding this Dublin team would be removed.

Right now, the men at the back and in the middle just don't have confidence in the men in front of them. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe it will all continue to stick together for Caffrey and the boys around him. Dublin are as good (give or take a small handful of points) as any All Ireland champions of the last three or four years.

They do not, however, have any real sense of composure despite all the meticulous grafting and fairly-good management by Caffrey and his companions.

And that's worrying. At times, last Sunday's game was hilariously chaotic and, in the madness which was at hand for long passages, there was poor marking, brutally bad passing and some awful finishing.

I genuinely fear these two games against Meath have done damage to Dublin. It's a cliche, but Offaly have nothing to lose in the wide world this afternoon. If Pat Roe's team settle down and into a tidy, dutifully hard-working performance which has always typified even half-decent Offaly sides then Dublin will again be in danger of having to work too hard, far too early in this championship season.

This Offaly team has strength everywhere, skill in abundance but greatness, alas, in only Niall McNamee. Dublin should be able to take Offaly apart, slowly but impressively over the 70 minutes and every single footballer in the Dublin dressing room should be absolutely certain that such will be the process in Croker this afternoon.

But how certain about life would you be if you were a Dublin footballer and seven days ago you watched up close as Vaughan scored eight points and saved your skin?