Dubs management glad to avoid tricky qualifier route

NOT surprisingly, there is a degree of quiet satisfaction among the Dublin management that their success in winning the GAA Leinster championship for the fourth year in a row was highlighted by arguably their best display of attacking football since Paul Caffrey took over.

However, as selector Dave Billings explained yesterday, the real sense of fulfilment came from actually winning — and avoiding the qualifier route.

Billings, who has spent a lifetime in the game, between St Vincent’s (he was a member of their last winning All-Ireland club team 32 years ago), UCD and various Dublin teams, revealed that their target from the beginning was to first get back to the final. That way they would avoid being implicated in two rounds of the qualifier competition.