Dublin’s inconsistency a worry for Gavin

It can be difficult to grumble with most seven-point wins but Jim Gavin had a few bugbears yesterday evening.

Having trailed by 10 points, conceding two goals in the space of a minute and registered 13 wides, this was a triumph which had its flaws.

“For the full 70 minutes we were very inconsistent obviously, being that amount of points down,” said Gavin. “That’s something which we’re still searching for from the national league, you know we haven’t got that consistency of performance. We haven’t got it and you know with eight weeks to go to the championship, it won’t be good enough.”

Gavin couldn’t disagree that they had — for the third consecutive game — showed a magnitude of resilience to claim the result.

“You know they demonstrate it day-in, day-out whenever we are with them, and we would have seen that mental resolve last year as well in a lot of the games.

“But it’s pleasing to see that it’s still there and they can tap into it on a technical level and tactical level that lack of consistency is an area that we really need to work on.

“Just a lack of focus in some technical areas that is hurting us and when you play against a good side like Cork, they are always going to punish you.

“We will be coming up against another quality side in two weeks [Derry] and if we show that lack of consistency we are going to be punished.”

Gavin agreed Dublin operated more directly in the second half although he noticed Cork had altered their game plan too.

“They probably stepped off us a bit in the first half and allowed us recycle the ball quite close to our own goal. We tried to vary it and they probably gave us opportunities.

“They pushed up a little more in the second half, which allowed us to kick longer. But we need to have that variation in our kick-out strategy. Otherwise, we will just become predictable.”

From Eoghan O’Gara to Ciaran Reddin, all of the Dublin replacements used made an impact. “We always expect them to do,” said Gavin.

“The starting 15... we don’t fully concentrate on those. We look at the full 26 that we have to pick on any given day. We place great emphasis on that and the mental resolve that they showed out there again today, we know they have that.”

Gavin didn’t hold the full-back line wholly responsible for Dublin’s first-half difficulties. “We thought they were doing quite well, it was the pressure out the field that was hurting us more than the guys inside. They were manning the pump as best they could.

“That lack of focus in the middle third, that’s what hurt us in the first half. So we would have made some little switches in the game itself, but nothing radical.”

Gavin added he hopes Cian O’Sullivan will be available for the final against Derry on Sunday week despite incurring a soft tissue injury.