Gilroy makes four changes

Dublin Senior Football manager Pat Gilroy has made four changes to his side for tomorrow's Allianz NFL Division 1 clash with Galway at Parnell Park.

Three of the changes are in the Metropolitans defence, with Stephen Cluxton, Rory O'Carroll and Barry Cahill coming into the side.

Cluxton replaces Michael Savage between the posts, with O'Carroll returning from under 21 duty to start at full-back in place of Michael Fitzsimons.

Elsewhere in defence Barry Cahill starts his first game for Dublin this year, with the St Brigid's clubman lining out at left-half-back, with Ger Brennan losing out having picked up an ankle injury mid-week.

Meanwhile there is one change to the Dublin attack, with Kevin Bonner replacing Michael MacAuley at left-half-forward.

MacAuley has started all of the Metropolitans games to date, but Gilroy says that his omission isn't anything to do with his form to date.

"Michael has played every one of the games so far. I suppose we felt that work-rate wise maybe we weren't getting enough out of that line," Gilroy said this morning.

"We probably put a little bit more work into the forward line for this game, but I'm sure Michael will be back into the team. It's not necessarily to do with form, we are trying to give everybody a chance."

And Gilroy is pleased to have Barry Cahill back in the setup.

"We are getting low on resources in the half-back line, but it is great to have Barry back. Obviously an experienced guy, to be able to bring him in like that. You probably wouldn't ideally like to have him playing yet, because he hasn't had that much training behind him, but hopefully he will do ok for this game."

Gilroy is also happy that his injury list is beginning to clear up.

"They are all now coming off it, some going back on to it which is unfortunate. Tomas (Quinn) is going well and Denis Bastick is going well. Mark Davoren is starting to do a bit of running as well, which is all positive for us.

"Alan (Brogan) played a bit of a club game last weekend as well. I think he is going to be a bit away from being on our bench yet, but he took full part in training this week and that is very encouraging for us."

Dublin come into this game off the back of their first league defeat this year, at the expense of Cork last weekend.

But Gilroy is keen to reflect on the positives.

"It wasn't like we had an absolute disaster in that match. There were some positives for us. We created four goal chances in the second half, and had we taken two of them (we could have won).

"That was a positive thing, that we really on the back-foot the whole time, but we did create the goal chances. Now we didn't score them, but there were some positives for us out of the game.

"I've said it all along that there is a gap between us and the top three or four teams. At least with that game we were still in with a chance with 10 minutes to go - we were only four points down, and we had been seven points behind early on.

"We clung in a lot better than we did in games last year, when we had those collapses. That was encouraging. I think everyone is realistic around this group and we know we can't play like we did in the first half last week."

DUBLIN (SF v Galway): S Cluxton; P Conlon, Rory O'Carroll, P MacMahon; H Gill, C O'Sullivan, B Cahill; E Fennell, R McConnell; A Hubbard, P Flynn, K Bonner; D Henry, B Brogan, K McManamon.