Gilroy proud of battling Dubs

PAT GILROY wiped a hand across his drawn face and pinched the skin in between his eyes like an exhausted office drone who had just spent the last eight hours staring at an overheating PC.

The Dublin manager had simply given all he had to give.

So, too, had his players.

“We said if we had lost and we gave it everything then we could deal with that and it is a hell of a lot easier to do that than if you just didn’t show up.

“We did throw everything at that. There was nothing left in any fella in that dressing-room and you have to be really proud of them.

“Where we were this time last year to where we are now is a very different place, but it is really important that we as a team push on. It is a very young gap and we have closed that gap. There is only a point between us and one of the top teams in the country.”

With the last of a three-year term to serve and with a reshuffled and youthful side, this Dublin side will be back in much the same format as we saw yesterday. Of that we can be sure.

Another year might have passed without Dublin contesting an All-Ireland final – it will be 16 and counting next summer – but Gilroy has introduced a system which he firmly believes is the best means of breaking that sequence.

It worked for over 50 minutes yesterday before the nuts and bolts began to pop and Cork poured through the breaches and the Dublin manager was of the belief that tiredness had been the culprit.

“I think so. They had thrown the kitchen sink at it at that stage. We conceded the penalty, obviously, and then a number of soft frees and you have to look at why we conceded them.

“Maybe we were a bit tired but we also had some wide stuff down the other end that last ten minutes as well when we could have maybe held on to the ball a bit longer.

“Look, it is a one-point defeat and it is all about the little things that add up to that. The little things went Cork’s way today. That is sport. It can be cruel but we have to learn the lesson from it. That is all you can do when you lose.”

Experience, both Cork’s as well as Dublin’s lack of it, was another factor.

“They have had a lot of pain over the past few years in Croke Park, when maybe they were the strongest team in the country. “Maybe that stood to them as well. A one-point defeat, it is just small things.”

This time 13 months ago, Dublin had been turfed out of the championship in no uncertain terms by Tyrone and Gilroy had talked of ‘startled earwigs’ in explanation of such a heavy defeat.

In that sense alone, Dublin have clearly moved on. Their ability to keep Cork at bay and build up a lead at the other end in that first-half was good but Gilroy believes there is more in them.

“We should have maybe scored more. We had some good chances, some easy chances and we should have maybe been ahead a bit more at half-time but a lot of things were going as we would have liked up to about 60 minutes and then things didn’t really happen the way we wanted them to happen.”

If they are to improve then they simply have to find a scoring partner for Bernard Brogan who again managed to claim 1-7 yesterday, all but one point of which came from open play.

Alan Brogan, Conal Keaney or the injured Mark Davoren may all prove to be that man next year but Gilroy is getting exasperated with the continued assertion that they are a one-man band up front.

“If we had scored three points today than I would have said ‘yeah’, but we scored 17, so … To be honest, it is a pretty boring question at this stage. The guy plays well, the lads give him the ball …

“It would be great if everyone was scoring the same but the reality is that he is the free-taker and he gets into those positions when he gets into those positions at that end of the pitch.”