Lee Keegan Identifies Two Overlooked Reasons Behind Dublin Decline

On the back of their results so far in this year's championship, it's fair to say that there are some major concerns about the direction of travel for the current Dublin team.

It is clear they are no longer the all-conquering force that they were in the previous decade. In fact, they are now even struggling within their own province.

Dublin's fall from grace has been a startling one, with a number of reasons behind that decline.

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Dublin have lost some big name players from the panel over the last few seasons, with their leadership sorely lacking during their recent run of poor results.

That, along with some other factors, has resulted in a sizeable drop off in standards in 2026.

Writing in his column for RTÉ, Lee Keegan identified two overlooked reasons behind their decline in recent times.

The Dublin underage machine doesn't appear to be what it was back in the early 2010s. We all heard about the Ciarán Kilkenny and Jack McCaffrey era of Dublin players at the turn of the last decade.

But success has been thin enough on the ground in recent years, at provincial level never mind at the All-Ireland stage.

Throw into that mix the arrival of the new rules - which were introduced at a moment when many of the greats of the last decade were coming to the end of their careers and the younger players were struggling to step into the breach.

In that sense, it could be argued that they came at the worst possible time for Dublin. The older crop had perfected the game under the pre-FRC rules but so much changed last year.

It is clear that Dublin had almost perfected the art of Gaelic football under the previous rules, since struggling to adapt to new game.

As for their lack of underage success, it was always going to be difficult to replace the stars that left the setup in recent times. Still, the transition likely would have been smoother if they had some top class youngsters coming through the system during the same period.

In short, things could get worse for the current Dublin crop before they start to get better.