DUBLIN MANAGER JIM Gavin is used to delivering post-match verdicts after victories.
The 2014 semi-final loss to Donegal and last year’s semi-final draw against Mayo have been the only blips on the Dublin manager’s senior championship record.
Today he was forced to review a game where Dublin’s standards slipped from their normal heights as parity against Mayo was the outcome once more.
“Just delighted to be still in the Championship. After that performance, we didn’t really deserve to win today and we’re just happy to be leaving the ground this evening with the opportunity to try and go at it again in two weeks time.
“It’s not to the standards that we would go after. (We were) playing a really good Mayo team.
“We knew there was only going to be the bounce of a ball, which there was. Obviously that first quarter of the second-half, they came strong at us.
“Our guys showed great mental resolve to hang in there and push on again. We pushed on, went three points up the in the last 10 but Mayo are a really good side.
“But I think over the expanse of the game, the full 70 minutes, we just didn’t perform to our standards. We didn’t deserve to win.”
Gavin pinpointed turnovers as a problem in Dublin’s performance and admitted the fortune they had received with a pair of own goals in the first-half.
“A lot of turnovers in that game and they got a lot of scores from that. So that’s something that we will definitely look at over the coming days.
“Absolutely, the luck was certainly with us today and we’ll certainly acknowledge that. We got those two bounces of the ball.
“We’re just lucky to be in the competition. That’s what top teams will do to each other if one team malfunctions.
“We’ll take an awful lot from that game. We’ll reassess and we’ll go at it again.”
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