The Dubs swept to a 17-point All-Ireland quarter-final win, their biggest winning margin of their four-game Championship campaign so far. I think it was a stern examination today - if Dublin didnt bring a performance to Croke Park, we wouldnt have got the result, insisted Gavin. Any dip in form, Monaghan would have hurt us. And to that end, it was job done. We just view it as a win, there was a job to be done today by the team and we are thankful that they did that and applied themselves in the right way. The success they had was based on hard work and thats what they demonstrated. There are lots of tired minds and tired bodies in that Dublin dressing-room. Any dip in form, Monaghan would have hurt us - Jim Gavin We knew going into the game we would have to produce a performance to beat a Monaghan side that continues to be improving as well. Monaghan manager Malachy ORourke admitted that his team received a harsh lesson from rampant Dublin who move on now to face Donegal in the semi-finals. We went out with a plan, we had looked at Dublin and we felt the best way to play them was to try and contain the space that they were going to operate in, said ORourke. For the first 20 minutes, that worked very well. We would have liked to have scored more but we felt we were frustrating Dublin fairly well. If we didnt concede the goals, it would have given us a sort of foothold in the game to push on but thats what Dublin can do. They got the first goal, the second goal and it left us chasing the game and thats a very difficult thing to do against a top class side. Asked about how much the seven day turnaround from their fatiguing extra-time win over Kildare impacted on Monaghan, ORourke admitted it was significant. It looked out there tonight that our energy levels werent at the level we would have liked, he said. In fairness to the boys, they worked very hard. But once Dublin got the goals, we were always chasing the game. ORourke indicated that he wishes to stay on as manager for 2015.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 21:34:29 +0000