Jim Gavin expects Dublin to improve as he puts all pieces in place

Two days to an All-Ireland final and here is Jim Gavin, bright of eye and bushy of tail at a breakfast briefing down by Dublin Port. The late September sun hasn't long poked its nose up over the horizon, as though it has had to force itself into the day. It's nine months more or less to the day since Gavin took his side to New Ross for the first O'Byrne Cup outing of 2016 – if he's feeling the length of the season, he's hiding it better than some of the rest of us.

“Life goes on,” he says of the two weeks since the drawn final. “A few players had plans for holiday or work because you do need to plan. And they had to readjust their plans.

“I was in Brussels for a few days on Irish Aviation Authority business. Life goes on. We’re all passionate about our Gaelic games but we’re all volunteers.

“We never presume anything. We never take any game for granted. We’ve always said there are no guarantees and we just need to perform. The whole preparation piece, the emotion of the day – yeah, it was a big day but thankfully we have a very experienced squad and they hit that reset button very quickly and went into that preparation mode very quickly after the game.

Cycle of games

“It’s probably because of the cycle of games we’ve been on over the last number of seasons. They do move from one game to the next very easily. There are very strong characteristics within the group and there’s that resilience piece within the group. Once the game is over, it’s over. It’s in the past and it’s there to be learned from.”

So, what did they learn? For Gavin, a review of the tape didn’t shift him significantly from his immediate post-match take. Dublin should be facing into a winter of what-might- have-beens by now.

“We’ve always gone after trying to play our particular game as best we can. That’s what we always focus on. So in terms of pass execution, shot selection, shot execution on the day – it wasn’t up to what the players set for themselves. Poor skill-execution, poor decision-making.

“There’s a number of contributory factors but at the end of it all, they just didn’t perform and that’s what they need to address. And if they don’t, we’re playing a great team and we won’t get the result.

“There’s a sense that we got lucky. In the first half, we weren’t scoring from play until very late in that half when we drove hard at them. Two lucky breaks for goals. Yes, we created those opportunities, but we didn’t execute them, it was Mayo that executed them for us. So we got lucky on the day. We were on the ropes and got a bit of luck on the day.”

Yet here they are. Favourites again, the broad thinking being that they will improve because they must improve. Gavin isn’t a man for broad thinking. Mayo have shown themselves to be singularly unafraid of Dublin all through Gavin’s time and he expects them to have grown in confidence.

“I am sure they have, they are a very experienced team. They have been around this block before. They have been in numerous finals before, they know what it is all about. Their younger players are playing really well too, they have that energy piece about them, they have that confidence and they are confident every time, talking about winning so they are a big threat to us on Saturday night

Experience and youth

“We didn’t adapt as well as Mayo did. All credit to them, their gameplan was very solid, good defensive structure. They played well as a team, they have a great mix there of experience and youth – [Brendan] Harrison and [Patrick] Durcan played really well in their first final.

“And they got a lot out of their experienced players as well. [Donal] Vaughan had big game for them. They’re playing good football so it’s going to be a mammoth task for us. They’re talking about winning now, they’re confident of winning – that’s a dangerous team.”

Gavin had choices to make with his team selection, forced into some tricky corners by the poor form of some of his forwards. He played down the difficulty of the decisions though, on the basis that he wouldn’t have to tell anybody anything they didn’t know.

“Players know themselves how they play. They obviously get feedback from the coaching staff on areas to improve on but I have to say, to their eternal credit, they just want to see what is best for the team.

“So whether a player is starting a game or finishing a game or is part of the 30-man squad, everyone’s nose is pointed in the same direction. They want to do the best for the team to get a team performance.”