DUBLIN WILL SHOOT on sight in their bid to retain Sam Maguire this summer.
The Dubs got their Leinster and All-Ireland title defence off to a winning start yesterday as second-half goals from Diarmuid Connolly and Michael Darragh MacAuley fired them past a dogged Laois.
There could have been even more green flags for the Dubs after Paddy Andrews and Connolly both hit the woodwork in the first half, while young Laois keeper Graham Brody pulled off some fine stops.
Their turbo-charged attack racked up 13 goals in the Championship last summer — and 14 in the league this spring.
And manager Jim Gavin isn’t worried about the points that are left behind if his men go for glory.
Gavin said: “We work hard on trying to create goal chances. Laois set themselves up very well against us and were difficult to break down.
The most pleasing thing from a coaching perspective is that we continue to take those goal chances against a tough defence and we encourage the players, if the shot is on, to take it.
“Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don’t.”
Dublin had 14 different scorers on the day including a massive 0-9 from their substitutes, highlighting again the huge strength in depth of their panel.
“It’s something that we really practice hard in our training sessions, the skill of scoring,” Gavin said.
There is work to do as we can see from both halves, but we were a bit more clinical in the second half.
“To get that range of scorers is probably a reflection of the work we do.
He added: “All the forwards worked very hard. They all put in a very good shift and the pleasing thing was that we were playing against a very good Laois team in the first half and they certainly put it up to us and played some very good football.
“Our guys never gave up, they tried very hard, and thankfully in the end we came away with the win.”
