‘Party boy’ Fennell keen to keep focus on football

Eamon Fennell believes referees aren’t as tolerant this season as they had been in previous years.

The St Vincent’s man was one of three Dublin players red-carded in the team’s last three games, his dismissal coming after a late tackle on Kerry’s Bryan Sheehan, which earned him a one-match ban.

He has been named for in the side for this evening’s game against Laois but the midfielder is mindful he’s walking a tightrope as another similar offence could see him face a two-match ban.

“We saw that in the Mayo game with James (McCarthy’s red card)... things are going to be treated a bit more seriously this year.”

Fennell acquired the services of a personal trainer after last year’s All-Ireland final to attempt to break into the first team.

A nightclub DJ as well as having his own Sunday evening slot on Dublin’s Phantom FM, the St Vincent’s man believes the perception of him as a “party boy” is harsh.

“I think people are always going to paint a perception of you anyway. But with the DJ slot it is late night work. I haven’t done it this year. I wanted to concentrate solely on my football and once I did I knew everything else would fall into place. You still have to work and still have to make a living. It is just unfortunate for me that the DJ work starts at night. So I have stopped doing anything during the week and the weekends we’ve no matches I can do something.”

With ‘melee’ the current buzz word in Gaelic football and Kerry’s Jack O’Connor having spoken to his players about their attitude to referees, indiscipline is on the minds of many managers.

Dublin’s Pat Gilroy doesn’t need to be reminded of how important it is for his charges to keep a cool head.

“We’re very conscious of the situation with referees and I think we’re quite good and guys accept the decisions of referees even when they’re maybe not the best.

“Maybe they get used to that with bad decisions at training from the referee there, so again there is no benefit to arguing with the referee. It’s not something that we have to address because we do it quite well.

“The other thing, it’s not just the sendings-off, it’s the frees because we’ve conceded quite a lot of scoreable frees against Kerry.”

Gilroy has no issue with Dublin facing the possibility of seven games in as many weeks starting this evening in Portlaoise.

Last year’s Division 1 runners-up definitely have six matches on the bounce because of the abandoned tie against Mayo.

But Gilroy believes his players will revel in their congested fixtures list and sees it as a test of strength of the panel.

“If you ask any of them they’d be delighted we’re playing games. Games is what it’s all about so there’ll be no moaning out of us. Whatever training we have done is done. We’ll only be ticking over during the weeks because the games will bring us on and leaps and bounds

“That’s good in its own way, it’s like playing in the qualifiers. You can actually get a good bounce out of this and use the whole squad.

“The week after next we’ll have everybody 100% available assuming we don’t get any other injuries.”

Gilroy intends to keep slotting in fringe players for each game alongside seven or eight of the team that featured in last year’s All-Ireland campaign.