Dublin's revival is not being properly utilised to promote Gaelic games - and the blues should not have to share Croke Park. Ian O'Riordan on the views of the Dublin manager

There is no preparing for Tommy Lyons at his most jovial - nor any warning. After training the other night Dublin football manager Lyons opened up to the media with a little more than his usual honesty. What followed was purely spontaneous and deeply revealing.

The theme was to be Dublin's All-Ireland quarter-final with Donegal next Monday, but it went way beyond that. Dublin and Donegal share Croke Park that day with Mayo and Cork, and before he was even provoked Lyons was throwing out more good copy than most managers would in the whole year.

"I'm disappointed that we don't have Croke Park to ourselves. I think we've lost a huge marketing exercise here. If you're trying to market the games in the capital we should be issuing a whole series of family tickets to come to Croke Park.

"But there are seven other counties involved (over the weekend) and they're equally entitled to play at Croke Park. I can understand why the decision was made, but I believe we could have put 80,000 Dublin supporters in there.

"And I feel sorry for the people who wouldn't have a snowball's chance of getting a ticket now, the people who wouldn't be associated with GAA clubs. And that's a pity. The only thing is, if we can sneak Donegal by a point, then we're down to two teams again for a semi-final."

It's hard not to believe the hype surrounding Dublin football this summer. Beating Meath and then Kildare is something they couldn't do for over seven years. Lyons may be still relatively new to the job, but there's no man now more tangled up in blue.

"I don't think too many people appreciate what's going on in Dublin at the moment. We don't really know ourselves. But there is a big, big wave of support coming out behind this team. That is a fact.

"The Arnotts jersey thing is phenomenal. I hear they're selling out the Man Utd jerseys four or five to one. It's phenomenal, lads. Mothers are going in and buying three or four jerseys and that's just awesome. That was why we were disappointed we didn't get Croke Park to ourselves.

"Of course it's important that Dublin has a bit of buzz about it, 'cause I believe the GAA over the next five years can benefit from Dublin. But it's also important that the GAA is strong as a unit."

Lyons feels part of the problem is the flak last year over the quarter-finals not being played in Croke Park. There was flak too about teams playing each other again, but he sees no problem in that.

"If you got a second chance you should be entitled to play anyone. This year has actually been unfair to Galway. And we were the only team that could pick out any of the four. So it should be a new ball game after the provincial championship. There is no weak team in the last eight. I say put them all into a big bowl and pull them out.

"But the provincial championship does give people targets and it does have a future. And it's a big thing to win. Something you will look back on in 10 years. The (National) League is important that way too.

"When we won the league in Offaly in 1998, we put the cup in the boot of the car and didn't take it out again until we got beat by Meath in Leinster. But I was talking to (veteran Offaly player) Tom Coffey last week, who rang me, like a lot of the Offaly lads did. It's only now that they're saying that they're the only Offaly team that ever won a National League."

The consistent downgrading of the league is something Lyons feels is overemphasised. He rates the new league system as the key in developing his new Dublin team.

"The week-after-week games helped develop a lot of young lads. Some of our older players needed a rest, and Dessie Farrell is still a bit slow getting back to full fitness. But the old horse is starting to get there. We've now christened him Carphone Dessie by the way.

"But people were saying we were disappointed with our league. That was never the case. We played 29 players in seven league games. We stayed in Division One. And we lost two games by a point. We had one bad performance against Cork, but I've always taken responsibility for that performance 'cause I dogged the lads that week in training. We really sowed it into them."

He feels the team have also learnt much from their three championship games - Wexford, Meath and Kildare: "They've had dodgy periods in those games and they've come through them. That's to their credit. Hopefully when the dodgy period comes next Monday, and it will definitely come, they'll still be able to ride through it.

"But you never know how they're handling the pressure until they hit the pitch the next day. At training the attitude seems to be grand."

Lyons is not just big into protecting his players, but also looking after them. Players like Alan Brogan and Johnny McNally, for different reasons.

"We do have a lot of young players, 19 and 20. I mean Alan Brogan just has no interest in talking to the media, but he's under huge pressure to talk. But he'll talk when he's ready to talk and by the time we finish schooling him he'll be as good a man to talk as the rest of them. But imagine playing in front of 78,000 and scoring 1-2 at that age.

"Paul Casey is starting to blossom and he's ready to talk now. But you'll never get that in the professional game, where people will be demanding cheques and all that. And you never saw Alex Ferguson throwing out Ryan Giggs to talk before his time."

As part of his recent broadside against the GAA for not fully looking after the players, Lyons had given the example of McNally, who'd lost his job a couple of days before the Leinster final.

"There was Mercury Engineering, who employed Johnny McNally the following Monday or Tuesday. That's a Dublin company but it's not owned by GAA people. Just good friends of mine. But there are GAA people in there and they understood what Dublin was about.

"And he got plenty of other job offers. I think I did well. I was thinking of opening my own employment agency. A little nixer on the side. But it showed me again that the passion for Dublin football is out there. And most of it is untapped."

Lyons has always put primary emphasis on the relationship with players. When he talks about winning the All-Ireland club title with Kilmacud Crokes in 1995 he puts it down to player relationships.

"I don't think I'll ever have the buzz like winning in 1995. That was with guys I'd grown up with, and guys on the team that I'd played with. But there's great club spirit in Kilmacud. Each victory has its own merits, but there's no doubt 1995 was the biggest high I've ever had.

"People don't realise Kilmacud is in the heartland of South County Dublin. They were pioneering the GAA out there 20 years before Tommy Lyons took over the senior team. We only went senior in 1978, when I was on the team. It was a young club, and so that was a massive achievement."

One parting shot: Will the lack of blue on the Hill take away from Monday's stage? "Look, the Hill will end up being Dublin. It always does and it always will. The tickets will come back by hook or by crook."

'We had very clear objectives and clear plans for the type of players we wanted. And we went looking for them. And we found those players, like Johnny McNally, Barry Cahill, Eoin Bennis. It wasn't that they were there waiting to be picked. So we got great satisfaction out of that.'