Jim Gavin keeping calm but knows margins will be fine

Twelve days before an All-Ireland football final and Jim Gavin isn't for stirring. Everything that is thrown at the Dublin manager is deflected with typical calm – even the desperate effort to raise some storm with that "arrogance" line, which, indirectly at least, came from within the Mayo camp.

It was 2014, and in his then role as a columnist with the Irish Examiner, former Armagh All-Ireland winner Tony McEntee was asked about Dublin's chances that summer. "There's huge arrogance in that set-up from winning an All-Ireland," he said, "and that creates blind spots."

Two years on and McEntee is part of the Mayo backroom team preparing for the showdown against Dublin on Sunday week, having been invited in under manager Stephen Rochford. So this is put to Gavin at Dublin's All-Ireland media event at Parnell Park, and no prizes for guessing his response. "Didn't read it," says Gavin without emotion.

Just opinions

Is he in any way surprised that someone would feel that way about this Dublin team?

“I think for anybody who writes in sports journalism, they’re just opinions. That’s why people are paid to do that, to express their opinions and that’s all it is. And it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, no.”

What Gavin is more open about is the sort of challenge he expects from Mayo on Sunday week. Dublin needed a replay to get past them in the semi-final of last year’s championship, arguably Dublin’s biggest test in their now 27 match-winning streak stretching back to March of 2015.

“We’re playing a bit of catch-up,” says Gavin, referring to the amount of homework they’ve done on the 2016 Mayo team.

“It’s not match-week yet. From what I’ve seen of them I’m not surprised when you look at the players they have. It’s a very mature team and they have learned a lot. They have been in finals before so they know how to get here.

“Over the last number of games in the qualifier series it has benefited them. They’ve got a run now and tightened things up defensively. They have introduced a few younger players from their 21 squad so it doesn’t surprise me.

“Plus their manager as well. Stephen Rochford has achieved a lot with his club as a player and with Corofin three Galway championships on the spin and winning the All-Ireland club series. He is a proven club manager so it seems to be a good fit. They will be a good challenge for us.”

The suggestion that Mayo have somehow come into this final “under the radar” is fully and properly rejected by Gavin. Even if they did fall to Galway in the Connacht semi-final, few people expected their summer to end there, did they?

“No. Good teams get to finals and they are a good team. You don’t come into an All-Ireland final under the radar. They have earned all their victories along the way, and learned a lot from it. They have been right up there in the past.

“Any time we have played them, from 2013 to last year, even up in Castlebar this February, there wasn’t a bounce of a ball between us. I’m sure there will be a bounce of a ball between us again.”

Both camps

Not that Gavin has in any way studied that league meeting this year. “No, we haven’t even looked at video and probably won’t. Different training cycles, conditions, etc. A lot has moved on in both camps since then.”

As for Dublin's preparations since their epic win over Kerry last week, everything seems to be going to plan.

"No injury concerns at all," says Gavin, "with the exception of Shane Carty [from Naomh Mearnog in Portmarnock], but then he's only returning this weekend, so he's the last one back. So it's looking good, and the boys are training well, so, yeah, full selection to pick from."

Denis Bastick was named to play against Kerry at midfield but didn't actually play, although that certainly does not rule him out of the mix for the final. "Not at all, no, because he's in the shape of his life."

There’s no worry either over the fitness of James McCarthy, who missed the quarter-final win over Donegal with a knee injury: “We could have played him if we had to but, thankfully, we didn’t, to give him another week, but you saw his mobility on the pitch against Kerry, and that’s what he was demonstrating in the weeks leading up to that game.”

Nothing much stirring at all then.