Dublin boss must choose words carefully

So how does Jim Gavin get out of this bind?

The Dublin manager is well known in his pre-match press conferences for his gushing praise of the opposition and insistence the team his are facing are of equal standing.

After a Leinster championship where Dublin won their three matched by a combined 59 points, scoring 11 goals and conceding none, his task has become much more difficult.

As he sits down with the media this morning, he face an almost impossible task to talk up a game which ticket purchases in the capital indicate isn’t attractive among Dublin supporters, so convinced are they of a victory.

And who could blame a little indifference? Dublin are 1/200 to beat Fermanagh and have a handicap of minus 15 points.

So what can Gavin say to dissuade the idea Sunday’s All-Ireland quarter-final is not lambs against lions?

Here we predict what he will say and what he won’t:

WHAT HE WILL SAY…

“Pete McGrath is one of Gaelic football’s greatest managers. After 1994, I know only too well the feeling of suffering a defeat at his hands of one of his teams.”

“Fermanagh have had a great championship thus far. Three qualifier wins. Three goals and 48 points. We’d be delighted if a Dublin team scored that in three games.”

“Fermanagh are our biggest threat now and we don’t look beyond the next game we play.

“To reach an All-Ireland semi-final, we must beat them. That’s the long and short of it. We don’t look back at what we have achieved. We only look forward to the next game and what can be achieved.”

“You look through this Fermanagh team - Ryan McCluskey, Eoin Donnelly in midfield, Sean Quigley, the man of the match against Westmeath Tomás Corrigan. We know the quality that is there. We won’t be taking them lightly.”

“We’ve beaten Westmeath. Fermanagh have beaten Westmeath. You can talk about margins but they are the facts and that’s what we deal in.”

WHAT HE WON’T SAY…

“The episode arising from our challenge match against Armagh has been a distraction. Our focus has deviated and it makes Sunday all the more difficult

“To be perfectly honest, we were expecting to be facing Cork this weekend. Our plans have been thrown and Fermanagh have the advantage of surprise on us.

“I could lie and say otherwise but the real competition we face on Sunday is from ourselves. If one starting player puts one foot or hand out of turn they’ll be in the stand for the semi-final, I swear here to you now.”

“We’ve not been tested one bit so far this summer and quite frankly I’m not sure if we as a management can avoid complacency creeping into the panel.”

“We’re really onto a hiding to nothing against Fermanagh. Win by a country mile and the under-cooked line will be thrown at us again. Win narrowly and it’ll be said there’s something wrong with us. If we are beaten, well, then I’m in bother. It’s not a lose-lose situation by any means. It’s much worse: it’s a lose-lose-lose situation.”