‘Clean slate’ for fancied Dublin

They’re favourites for a three-in-a-row of EirGrid Leinster U-21 football titles, and many people’s All-Ireland fancies, but Eoin Murchan says the reality for new look Dublin is 2016 is a ‘clean slate’.

Manager Dessie Farrell retained just three starters from last year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tipperary — goalkeeper Lorcan Molloy, Martin Cahilane and Andy Foley— for tonight’s championship opener against Meath.

Murchan, an ever present in last year’s successful Leinster campaign, hasn’t made the team and as if to underline the theme of new beginnings, Darragh Spillane, nephew of Kerry great Pat, is a novel inclusion.