GAELIC GAMES/Championship 2006: Ian O'Riordan gets the views of the Dublin manager ahead of Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo

If Paul Caffrey even suspects his Dublin team have an advantage over Mayo as the fresher team going into Sunday's All-Ireland football semi-final then he's certainly not going to admit it. The difference is obvious - Dublin won't have played for 15 days, Mayo play for the third Sunday in succession - but that, suggests Caffrey, is all theory.

"All this three-match talk for Mayo," he says, "and whether it's a good or bad thing, well I think the bottom line on that will be on Sunday. Who really knows? If Mayo win they'll probably say it helped sharpen them up, and if they lose, they'll probably say that fatigue was a factor.

"But for me, personally, I would think that the modern players are capable of playing a match every weekend. So to me only having a week between one match and the next is really irrelevant. Obviously if you've picked up injuries and knocks or whatever then it becomes a factor, but if you can come through without any of that I think teams are well capable of going out the following weekend and playing another match."

Dublin's win over Westmeath last Saturday week set up their first All-Ireland semi-final since 2002, when they endured the narrowest of losses to Armagh. This game, however, is viewed as the greater chance to bridge an 11-year gap and make their first All-Ireland final since 1995.

Unlike 2002, Dublin are widely viewed as All-Ireland contenders, a view that gained momentum during their Leinster campaign. Caffrey, naturally, is not getting caught up in any of that talk. "Sunday is the only game that matters to us," he says, with nothing more to add on that issue. What is certain is that nothing Caffrey does at training at this stage will probably increase or decrease Dublin's chances of winning the thing outright. He has been down this road before as a selector with Tommy Lyons during the semi-final run of 2002, and even if they do make the All-Ireland final there's no going back to the drawing board.

"All the work is done now, absolutely," he admits. "The season is planned out, and we're just heads down, following those plans. Of course, the training does vary as you go on. And the training now is a lot different to what it was back in March or April.

"And right now it's mostly the match-specific stuff, or say the match-related stuff. Practice matches, that kind of thing."

As Sunday's game is the first championship meeting between the counties since 1985, when Dublin prevailed after a replay 2-12 to 1-7, part of the semi-final countdown includes an in-depth assessment of the opposition. (Coincidentally, their only other championship meeting before that, in 1955, also went to a replay, with Dublin again prevailing). There is, of course, the more recent league meeting to go on, when Mayo went to Parnell Park in late March on the back of a four-game unbeaten streak, only to lose heavily to Dublin 4-10 to 1-10.

Yet no introduction will be necessary between the two management teams. Mayo manager Mickey Moran and his assistant John Morrison were with Donegal when Dublin beat them in the 2002 quarter-final, and Morrison also knows Caffrey personally from sharing coaching clinics with him in Dublin in recent years. Straight after Mayo's win over Laois last Sunday, Morrison was in fact embraced by Caffrey, who was on duty in Croke Park in his other capacity.

After that game, Morrison also spoke of his firm belief in the idea that the modern Gaelic footballer can play week after week: "These guys are as good as professionals, and I actually think playing games every weekend is the best way to train them. We only had one hard training session in the last two weeks (leading up to the Laois game) and I couldn't believe how the boys were flying that day. So bring the games on. We'll be sharp, we'll be fresh."

One man who probably doesn't agree with that is Laois selector Declan O'Loughlin. Earlier this week he spoke of the tiredness and weariness he saw in his Laois team as they played their third big game in four weeks, commenting on the players' inability to lift themselves again in the second half.

Last Sunday, added O'Loughlin, was a lot warmer than most people in Croke Park suspected, and he was very surprised at the lather of sweat on the Laois players at half-time. That kind of deceptively draining afternoon could yet be the big disadvantage for Mayo and yet, as Caffrey says, who really knows?