Gilroy admits Dubs got the breaks in decider

Dublin football boss Pat Gilroy admits they got some breaks in the All-Ireland final and semi-final wins over Kerry and Donegal.

Much was made in Kerry of Joe McQuillan’s refereeing performance in the decider.

“The facts of the things were we won a final by a point and we won a semi-final by two. They were very tight games and things went in our favour in the last 15 minutes of both games. Now, did that happen by accident or was it down to something good we did? I think it’s a mixture of both. But the record book is the record book.”

He also revealed he was inspired to manage Dublin for a fourth season because he felt they are capable of better performances than their All-Ireland winning year in 2011. “I don’t think we really did ourselves justice in the semi-final or final. That was a big motivation for me — to see if we could get ourselves performing at a really high level more consistently.”

Meanwhile, the county hurlers’ cruciate victims Conal Keaney, Stephen Hiney and Tomás Brady all returned to blue colours in a SH challenge game against Waterford on Tuesday night.