Dublin still searching for the right way forward

“No”. Jim Gavin is usually more generous with his words but when he was asked last month if Dublin would be tempted to join others and adopt a blanket defence he felt he didn’t need to elaborate.

His answer might have been curt but then all through this spring the Dublin manager has attempted to disassociate his side from the fashionable rearguard tactics.

After the opening league game in Páirc Uí Rinn, he suggested he had never seen a more defensive Cork side. Having beaten Donegal in an arm wrestle, he said: “That’s the way (Donegal) play. There is no right way or wrong to play Gaelic games. They’ve been so successful with that model.”