Howard Beale, 'Network'

SHANE RYAN enters through a bar door but you expect him to exit through the bar wall.

Basically he's huge, the latest in a line of Dublin footballers that could con it as a rugby centre. Quiz him about the top-heavy look and he just smiles and admits he's grateful he changed careers a few years back. Then he was in banking but people were pulling on the various strands of his life and the whole lot was unravelling. Now teaching has given him room to inhale the summer air. Just in time too. After all, the training Dublin have been doing ever since would have meant being late for work . . . plenty to annoy the boss.

The new look? That started in a Croke Park dressing room late in August 2005.

Ryan was just one of a beleaguered panel, left with barely enough energy to feel embarrassed. Sure, they had taken the year's All Ireland champions to a replay and the 2-18 to 1-14 scoreline the second day out was far from disgraceful. But while the rest of the country praised their effort, Ryan and his teammates knew they had been bullied. They'd just had their hair pulled in front of their own people and their faces had been rubbed into the mud of their own backyard.

Enough was enough.

"That was it. We thought things were going well after winning Leinster and this was great but that day against Tyrone we knew we were still a long way off an All Ireland.

That was the moment and that was about the size of it.

No more being nice about this and playing nice and being liked. Who cares what you are like if you win the All Ireland? Maybe that's not the most sporting view but any team that wants to win it has to take that view and we've learned that now.

"Tyrone showed us what it takes to win an All Ireland.

That was their second, we managed to draw with them and maybe we were a bit lucky but they showed us the level we have to get to in more than one way. There is that ruthlessness and meanness.

But as well as that I was marking Enda McGinley and I thought I was fit. The game was hectic and I was out on my feet and I'm sure he must have been tired too because it was sapping but he never showed it and was going strong in the end. That's where I had to get to. We all had to get to that level and it was a serious wake-up call."

It didn't take long for their mentality to change. The following February they went to Omagh. They can't be sure if they won the fight but at least they were in it this time.

On top of that, they had beaten Tyrone, picked up two league points and won where nobody wins, in Healy Park.

"Dogged stuff. It was a battle in a fighting sense but much more than that. The fight was handbags cause nobody got hurt but psychologically that day meant a lot. We beat the All Ireland champions in Omagh and we matched them physically. They weren't going to bully us and get away with that. Nobody was."

? ? ? Of all the thick GAA blood in the country, none runs more viscous than his. One grandfather, Seamus O Riain, was President of the association from 1967 to 1970. The other, Sean O Siochain, was Director General prior to Liam Mulvihill. His father Jack was a dual player for Tipperary and was an All Ireland winner with the hurlers in 1971. Many reckon he holds a record for time spent in UCD, too, having lined out on more Fitzgibbon Cup teams than anyone cares to remember. Then there's his mother Orla. She started her camogie career with Dublin at 15, won three All Irelands in her first three years and never won again. It's that name that adorns the two wristbands on his right arm, one in the colours of their club, Naomh Mearnog, the other in shades of blue.

"She died at the end of 2003. She would have been 55 and my life was on its head. One of the biggest influences on my life was suddenly gone. I found it hard moving on but we have such a big family, so many aunts and uncles and cousins around, it helps a lot. And we wanted to do something positive out of it so we set up a blitz in Naomh Mearnog with camogie and hurling and other things all to raise money for the Irish Cancer Society, Beaumont Hospital and St Francis Hospice in Raheny. They had one last year and they are planning another one in September. Obviously the first year there was a greater buzz about it but I'd love to see it continuing.

"It is strange because it puts everything into perspective but at the same time sport was such a big part of our lives and many peoples' lives and we take it seriously and rightly so. And she was an All Ireland champion as is my dad and as a kid you just take that for granted. But now I realise it means so much having strived to get there and I wonder what the aftermath is like and the reaction of people and just everything that goes with it. I'd love to find out for myself.

There was a time when I said I would have been happy to retire with a Leinster medal in my pocket but now I have three and all I want is an All Ireland like they won."

? ? ? Dublin may well lift Sam Maguire while he's part of the set-up, after all he's still just 28. When he met a 33year-old Kieran McGeeney on the international rules panel towards the end of 2006 he goes so far as to say he was taken aback. Never had he seen someone who played for so long, look so good and show such hunger.

What he doesn't realise is Dublin are now at that level.

Before every training session this summer the lot of them have taken 20 minutes to pump iron. They have the physicality to go all the way but it's the change in attitude that makes you wonder if they are winning the right way.

Last week in this church Sean Og O hAilpin was talking about sportsmanship.

"More than winning I think it's important that you're a good sportsman because, long after you leave the game, how you played outweighs what you've won." He wasn't referring to Dublin's new approach but there's been plenty of others willing to do just that.

Luke Dempsey said, "It's noticeable that certain quality players are doing this. If they go to Croke Park and have been 'coached', for want of a better word, in this unsportsmanlike behaviour, it's not right." But it was the words of Laois's Darren Rooney that were most hardhitting when he spoke about this year's Leinster final.

"Nobody is there to take abuse like thatf We were beaten and taking it, but for them to make a laugh of it.

Some of our medical staff got the height of abuse from Dublin players. I was on the ground getting treated before that, Dublin backroom staff were coming in off the line and one fella came in and jostled me. We'd all know those Dublin lads but, after what happened, it will be hard to look at them in the face again."

It's hard mentioning those words to Ryan. He was the one who looked to get hit repeatedly by Padraic Clancy but got on with it. He's always got on with it but what's it like to be part of a team that have come in for such a level of criticism, most agree deservedly?

"Well firstly there was the Clancy thing. Let's put that to bed, it looked a lot worse than it was. To be truthful things happen and that was nothing. As for the other stuff, well I've seen it on TV but that can be misleading. I'd be very surprised to hear of mentors getting involved and lads abusing physios but I'm not going to call Darren Rooney a liar. I really don't know . . . stuff happens that shouldn't but the real test is shaking hands and getting on with players away from it.

Is that not the real test of sportsmanship? Is being friends afterwards not a greater show of your character?

"You have to realise none of us go out thinking 'I'm going to annoy my man'. In saying that, in the heat of the moment things happen. We'd have seen Laois as our big rivals and things happened.

Like you mention people giving out about Paul Casey being given a high-five by Pillar even though he was taken for a few points. But we saw winning three-in-a-row as a special achievement and after that our focus returned the next night in training.

Maybe Mickey Harte wouldn't have done that but our main focus is on us. There has to be almost a siege mentality. We have to worry about what we are going to do. We have our goals, our focus, our aims and our plans and whatever anyone else thinks of those does not bother us."

DUBLIN'S GOAL THREAT TO CARRY THE DAY ALL IRELAND SFC QUARTER-FINAL DERRY v DUBLIN Saturday, Croke Park, 3.00 Live, RTE Two, 1.00 If worry has slipped into a single Derry mind ahead of this one, now is the time to be rid of it.

There's absolutely no need for them to feel such an emotion over the next six days because they are going to give this one hell of a rattle. Everything about them says they will. It's common knowledge they aren't going to be bullied, but despite beating Armagh, Mayo and running up 118 while overcoming Laois in the qualifiers, their obvious ability has gone unrecognised. If Dublin should fail to see that, it's year over in the capital. Here's why.

Firstly, Enda Muldoon (right).

Since moving to wing-forward the Ballinderry player looks five years younger and 10 years fresher. His roaming roll has given him the licence to do what he's capable of in build-up play, and in the case of the goal of the season against Mayo, the freedom to get inside sporadically. Next up there is Paddy Bradley. Enough said. But Derry are no longer a stale twoman act. Colin Devlin has revitalised this forward line.

While Bradley requires the perfect ball, Devlin's movement is superb and will give Dublin's back line something extra to concern them. Add Conleth Gilligan and Paul Murphy to that list and there's a big points total in waiting.

That's why Derry's defence is going to be key. If they can match Dublin's goal tally (preferably none from the backs' point of view) they will win today. Kevin McGuckin returns from a broken leg. Kevin McCloy is having a fine year. Gregory O'Kane is still there as is Sean Marty Lockhart but we are still slightly worried because Croke Park and Dublin's forward movement could get the better of them when it comes to goals.

Derry are the only Division One team that will be lining out on Saturday, they were understrength when they lost a challenge match to a last-minute goal in a pre-championship meeting between the two sides and they have played the better counties in getting to this point.

In fact, man to man, they have the better players.

Problem is, they are not yet thee team Dublin are.

They will be coming across a side in year four of their development and training, a side that are physically bigger and a side with a much greater goal threat. It's those last few words that will be of most concern.

Verdict Dublin by a goal