Dublin must learn to swim in deeper water

FOR most of the last eight years, the rather dismissive perception of Dublin has been that of a big fish in Leinster’s pond but one that shrank to the proportions of a relative minnow when it migrated into the deeper waters of the All-Ireland series.

It is a generalisation that has been bred chiefly on a litany of heavy quarter-final defeats to Kerry in 2004 and 2009 and Tyrone in 2005 and 2009 but their experiences in the last four paint an altogether more sympathetic portrait.

Dublin have featured in three All-Ireland semi-finals in the last eight years and lost the lot by a combined score of just four points. If any team can compare psychological scars with Cork, it is the Dubs.