For all the clouds of early season uncertainty hanging over Dublin right now, Seán Bugler insists the players inside the dressingroom still believe they can reach Gaelic football’s summit this summer.
Teams are always in some state of evolution or transition but the latter seems particularly acute with regard to the Dublin footballers this season.
Following Saturday night’s win over Monaghan, Ger Brennan said he wouldn’t be using the term transition to describe Dublin while Bugler has now gone even further – feeling a realistic target in 2026 is to get their hands on Sam Maguire.
“As a group we all believe that we can win an All-Ireland this year,” said Bugler. “We have a lot of new lads that are kind of finding their feet and really pushing on. Joe Quigley made his debut at the weekend, came on and scored a goal that won the game for us.
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“As a group we know the potential we have inside, it’s just about showing it week in week out and going after that consistency piece, which is probably something we’ve struggled with over the last couple of years.
“But we know as a group that we have the potential to be successful and Ger has reiterated that the summer is where we’re looking at. We just want to build on performances and tweak one or two things in terms of the way we want to play.”
Brennan’s comments on potentially cutting players from his panel after the loss to Mayo garnered plenty of attention. James McCarthy reckoned the Dubs boss was merely trying to ‘rattle a few cages’ to get a response against Monaghan.
“Mission accomplished,” smiled Bugler. “Ger didn’t mean anything bad by it, he just wanted to get the best out of the group.
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“It was a nice wake-up call for the group, to really see where we’re at. Even for myself, it was a nice wake-up call for me and a lot of other senior lads as well because we know that with all these new lads we need to have a standard that they’re trying to hit in order to be successful in the summer.
“It was something we discussed internally and since then our training sessions have been through the roof in terms of aggression.
“The management team don’t really care who you are, you need to be performing on the pitch in order to get a starting jersey.”
Bugler underwent ankle surgery during the off season and didn’t start Dublin’s opening two league games – coming off the bench against Donegal and Mayo. But the versatile forward, who made his senior Dublin debut in 2019, started in Saturday night’s win over Monaghan.
And the 27-year-old sees himself as one of the players now having the responsibility of driving the group forward.
“Yeah, definitely. When you look at the players that have moved on, like James McCarthy, Brian Fenton, even Clucko, Jack McCaffrey, when these boys move on the onus is on other lads to step up.
“We know that because of the amount of new lads we have coming through that there needs to be a group there to kind of lead by example both on and off the field, and I feel I’m one of those players.
“The new lads need to see what the standard is like because if you drop off for a session it can have a damaging effect on the group so every session you need to be at it.”
Dublin will certainly need to be at it next Saturday night when they welcome Kerry to Croke Park for one of the most storied rivalries in Irish sport.
Kerry arrive to the capital with three points after as many games in Division One while Dublin’s victory over Monaghan came on the back of defeats to both Donegal and Mayo.
“Look, we were happy enough with certain aspects of our game last Saturday but there’s a lot of stuff we need to clean up as well.
“Our shot efficiency in the first half wasn’t up to it and Monaghan probably got a foothold on our kickouts in the second half, which is something we’ll look at this week leading into a big game against Kerry.
“They’ve unbelievable footballers across the park. Athletically as well, around the middle third, they’re really good. They’re All-Ireland champions for a reason and the rest of the pack need to chase them.”
♦ Bugler was speaking ahead of Saturday night’s Croke Park Dublin double-header. The Dublin hurlers face Wexford in Division 1B of the National Hurling League at 5pm, followed by Dublin v Kerry in Division 1 of the National Football League at 7pm.
