DUBLIN WAS DANCING last night to the tune of a ninth Leinster title in 10 years — but manager Jim Gavin warned that his side need to up their game again.
The Dubs humiliated old rivals Meath with a 16-point win in front of more than 62,500 fans in Croke Park.
It sent the champions sailing through to an All-Ireland quarter-final early next month while Meath head for the back door and a Round 4B qualifier with Armagh.
Despite racking up a double-digit win for the third time in as many games this summer, Gavin pointed to room for improvement.
“For patches of that game we strung together some good scores, and from a coaching perspective you’d be happy with some of the displays. The performance out of the defense and midfield was impressive in parts.
[But I'm] a little bit disappointed in the end. We could probably have closed it out a little bit better.
After taking a nine-point lead into the break, Dublin outscored Meath by 2-8 to 1-4 in the second half.
As the game’s intensity tailed off in the final quarter, so too did Dublin’s scoring, and both Gavin and wing-forward Paul Flynn admitted there is work to be done.
Gavin said: “I think it was a complete performance. They worked hard for each other and they displayed a good attitude throughout the game so we are very happy in that regard.
“It was a good start, but we’d look at the last quarter of the game where we lost concentration with some moves and some of our shot selection wasn’t what it should be.
Certainly there was patches of that game where the players set out to play to the game plan and they certainly played it to the best of their ability. In that regard it was pleasing.
Flynn, who was one of 11 Dublin scorers, agreed: “Yeah, in patches it was good but the last 15 minutes, we probably took the foot off the gas a bit.
We were wasteful as well so when the intensity dropped, we made a few errors, but we were far enough ahead then. Maybe we just took our eye off the ball a bit.
“We were obviously expecting a big battle. You know yourself, the form book seems to go out the window when we play against Meath. It’s always a big battle, they’re tight games.
“We knew after last year, they went in ahead at half-time, so we obviously knew it was going to be a big game. We just put the foot down early.”
