Dublin's remarkable domination of the All-Ireland football landscape was finally halted by a resurgent Mayo outfit at Croke Park yesterday evening.
After a record 45 championship matches unbeaten, James Horan's Mayo put the six-in-a-row All-Ireland champions to the sword at the semi-final stage.
Dublin appeared to be cruising to victory when they led 0-10 to 0-4 at half-time but the Connacht champions came roaring back at them to win in extra-time.
"It was obvious we were very flat in the second half. We knew Mayo – and they had done it in the Connacht final as well – were going to come with a lot," Dublin manager Dessie Farrell pinpointed what went wrong for his side afterwards.
"I think we found it very difficult to get out past their high press and we struggled to build any sort of momentum. A couple of mistakes, a couple of bad decisions maybe made.
"I thought at one stage if we could get a score or two, it might start to ease the pressure and we’d ride out the storm, but we just could never get that additional score that was going to put that safe distance between us.
"You could see them building then and it was very hard to disrupt their momentum that they obviously generated significantly. They got back into it, got the draw and won in extra-time obviously."
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