Champs drew motivation from ‘bottlers’ tag

Dublin’s James McCarthy hit out at the team’s detractors who referred to them as “cowards”, “chokers” and “bottlers” after last year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Donegal.

“Look, there was a lot of hurt over last year. A lot of stuff said about us. A lot of people questioned our character. A lot of slurry thrown at us, I thought. People calling us cowards and chokers and bottlers.

“There’s a lot of men in there with a lot of medals. As much as you try and block it out, it still creeps through and you hear it. It annoyed me. And it annoyed a lot of men in that changing room. But I think we gave the answer in the last couple of weeks.”