Philly McMahon skips Dublin’s Croke Park scouting mission

Philly McMahon doesn’t come across as the sort of guy who swats up on the opposition at the earliest opportunity, but the Dublin defender has a pretty solid excuse for adopting a non-watching brief for Saturday’s two All-Ireland qualifiers in Croke Park.

Dublin will meet one of the three teams involved — they cannot be matched with Westmeath again — in the quarter-final but McMahon has far more important matters to occupy him than the tactics and form of counties Mayo, Cork and Donegal.

“I’m doing a fundraiser for a kid called ‘Batman Ben’ so we are doing that on Saturday. All the (BK Fitness) gyms that I have are coming together and we are doing an obstacle course and we’re going away for food that night as well.”