DUBLIN FOOTBALL BOSS Jim Gavin is acutely aware his side – as reigning All-Ireland champions – have a target on their back every time they step onto the field but he disagrees that Clare’s defeat at the hands of Cork in the Munster hurling championship should serve as a warning to his players.
Instead, the hazard lights are blinking from over 5,000 miles away in Brazil.
“We wouldn’t just use [the Clare] example; there’s plenty of examples in sport and we even saw Wednesday night, in the World Cup with Spain.
“The Dublin team are acutely aware that there are no guarantees in sport.
“Some of the guys would have experienced in 2012. I experienced it in ’96.
“We stay in the present; we can’t look too much into the future, because there are no guarantees. And what happened in the past is in the past, we can’t have any control over that.
“So it’s really focussing on our next game, and our next game and our biggest threat now to us is Wexford and that’s where our focus remains.”
While Dublin won’t face Wexford in the Leinster SFC semi-finals until Sunday June 29, this weekend marks Gaelic football’s debut on Sky Sports when Galway take on Sligo in Markievicz Park at 7pm on Saturday.
Gavin is fan of the increased levels of media coverage, particularly as it helps teams like his engage with a wider public.
“First and foremost it’s great for Gaelic games that there is such talk, particularly in a county like Dublin where we’re always trying to go after the hearts and minds of our youth and trying to get people to play Gaelic football.
“This is part of the process, it’s trying to engage with the media.
“But for whatever comments are made, they’re just opinions and that’s fine – that’s all they are. They’re subjective comments on what the team can do. So, the players know that there are no guarantees and they’ve all experienced that with their clubs and with their county.”
However, that doesn’t temper levels of expectation in the capital.
“There’s always an expectation in Dublin. It’s always been there and these guys would have experienced it at underage – U18 and U21.
“The Dublin support base expects the teams to win, but as we know from the records will show, we’ve two All-Irelands won by a point in the last 20 years.
“So there are no guarantees when you play this sport at the elite level – there’s so many good teams out there.”
