By Cathal Dervan

MY old friend Pat Costello, the very wise commercial man from the FAI, was on the phone like a shot on Sunday morning, anxious that his association’s farewell to Lansdowne Road feature an honor of a different kind.

The European Champ-ionship qualifier against San Marino on Wednesday night was always going to be the final international match to be played at the Dublin 4 ground before the bulldozers mover in next year.

As a result it was always going to be a night for nostalgia and emotion, a night to say goodbye to the pitch that has witnessed so many highs and lows for Irish football in the last 36 years since soccer became a regular event at Lansdowne with the visit of Italy for a Euro qualifier in 1971.

The last soccer match scheduled for Lansdowne, incidentally, is the FAI Cup final between Derry and St. Pat’s on December 3 which promises to be quite an exciting affair in its own right, but more on that another day.

For now, though, we should concentrate on Wednesday night of this week and Saturday night of last week, two days now intertwined forever thanks to my pal Pat and a great Dubliner by the name of Bernard Dunne.

Last Saturday night young Bernard staged one of the greatest sporting events it has been my pleasure to attend in a life full of sporting events good, bad and ugly.

His European super-bantamweight title fight against England’s Esham Pickering wasn’t just a boxing match, it was an occasion, the sort of occasion you will travel a long way to match.

From the packed 7,000 strong crowd and the unbelievable atmosphere they created, to the manner in which Dunne boxed his way past Pickering through 12 rounds of give and take punishment, it was something special.

So special that another old friend, the great Vincent Hogan of the Irish Independent as it happens, turned to me at an FAI press conference on Sunday and said, “I’ve really missed nights like that.”

I thought about his remark for a second, and then I knew exactly what he meant. We have all missed nights like Saturday in Irish boxing for too long.

Boxing can, of course, be a cruel sport. The amount of blood that flowed down Pickering’s nose from the end of the second round to the end of the 12th was proof positive in that regard.

But it is also a beautiful art, a sport where two men engage in the most primitive of rituals, the survival of the fittest.

Dunne won that battle for survival over 12 rounds on Saturday night with a mixture of boxing skill, confidence bordering on necessary arrogance and sheer hard work.

In the process he sent 7,000 fans and some very seasoned journalists home happy, happy in the knowledge that a future world champion is now in our midst.

We haven’t experienced a night like that for some time, not me not Vincent and not the hordes who packed the Point to bursting.

In fact the last such great occasion for Irish boxing was the night down in Millstreet in the mid-‘90s when Steve Collins first put Chris Eubank back in his fancy box on another evening packed with emotion.

Which brings me back nicely to Pat Costello, Wednesday night at Lansdowne Road and the bit where Bernard Dunne fits into all of this jigsaw.

Pat’s call on Sunday came with a simple request –- he wanted to know how to get in touch with the new European champion and Ireland’s latest sporting hero. I was happy to help, and by tea-time on Sunday young Dunne had accepted the invitation to attend the San Marino match as the FAI’s guest of honor.

By the time you read he will have been paraded onto the Lansdowne Road pitch at halftime in the game, belt and all, and introduced to a crowd that I know will welcome his arrival with the same gusto afforded to him by an adoring Point Theatre last Saturday night.

Dunne has come a long way since he arrived home from his Los Angeles apprenticeship just over two years ago.

He said then that he was coming home to win the European belt and build a world title challenge from Dublin. We believed him –- it would take a brave man not to –- and on Saturday night he was true to his word.

On Wednesday night the nation got to say thank you to Bernard Dunne, though not, I suspect, for the last time. Take note a new Irish hero was born in the Point on Saturday and feted at Lansdowne on Wednesday night, a new hero with so much more to come.

The great Jimmy Magee even reckons Dunne can go as far as Barry McGuigan. If he’s good enough for Jimmy then he’s good enough for me.