Mike Hassett was one of those fellas who could get away with anything. Some of us would have to watch ourselves in case we said the wrong thing at the wrong time and got in trouble for it. But Hassett had that way about him where no manager could stay mad at him for long or even get mad at him in the first place. It was a handy skill to have.

Years ago we were getting ready for a press night before some game we were totally expected to win. I can’t remember who it was against but, put it this way, nobody was considering for a minute that we might not win it. But the press were coming down looking for quotes all the same and sure we had to tell them something.

This was in Páidí’s time. As we all know, Páidí’s attitude to the press was to give them no more than he would give a forward in an All-Ireland. He’d make sure to give us a small bit of media coaching before the press lads arrived, just in case there was any confusion. Keep it tight, lads. Don’t be letting anything slip.

Of course, Hassett had a field day with this. “What’s the official line, Páidí?” he asked in front of everybody. “We’ll beat them handy, is it? The usual, six or seven points?”

Now, if I had done that or any of the rest of us, we’d have sent Páidí into a rage for not taking the thing seriously. But with Hassett, he just walked away shaking his head at how hard this job was.

Dublin have a job to do against Fermanagh this weekend. It’s not a difficult job and there’s no real doubt as to whether they’ll be fit for it or not. We can talk around it all we like but in the end we know that they’re going to beat Fermanagh. But that’s where the players run into a little bit of trouble.

Preparing yourself for a game you know you are going to win is one of the trickier things about being an intercounty player. That sounds a bit stupid, I know. But think about it. It doesn’t happen all that often so you’re not really familiar with it. And something about it just doesn’t feel right because you’re so used to building yourself up to face the expected challenge.

Professional job

You have to do a professional job, starting with all the pre-game stuff. It’s a charade and we all know it’s a charade but it has to be done. They know it, we know it, the media know it. It’s a matter of working out how to be as humble as possible without looking cynical about it.

People talk about avoiding complacency. You will talk about it yourselves. Management will warn against it. Everyone you run into will have their say too. but if you think you can talk your way out of complacency, then you haven’t really worked out what complacency means.

It’s actually very simple. Complacency is an absence of fear. It’s when you look at an opposition, size them up, reason it out and come up with the conclusion that you’re not afraid of what’s going to happen. People think it’s a lack of respect but that’s not it. Dublin will respect Fermanagh completely for what they’ve done in getting this far. But in their heart of hearts, how many of them will fear the prospect of losing?

That’s what makes this a tricky task for a player. Getting your mindset right when you’re not afraid of losing means you have to first find your starting point. If you don’t think there’s a chance you will lose a game, you start looking around for other reasons to talk yourself into the right frame of mind.

To be fair to Dublin, they have had plenty of practice at this sort of thing during Jim Gavin’s time and they have become very good at putting teams away quickly. Fermanagh are a genuine team, much more honest and hard-working than some of the Leinster teams Dublin have been giving trimmings to. But call a spade a spade here – Dublin will deal with them and move on.

One reason Dublin have become so good at putting away inferior teams is Gavin has instilled a good healthy amount of selfishness in his players. Everybody wants to win for the good of their county and the supporters and all that jazz. But first and foremost, players want to play. They want to be the ones doing the winning.

People talk about the big panel Dublin have and all the different options available to Jim Gavin. But go through the team and you'll see the first 15 doesn't really change a huge amount. That's because these guys guard their patch as though their lives depend on it. If that means hammering whatever crowd of poor unfortunates are put in front of them, so be it. It's like the comedian Denis Leary says – life sucks, go buy a helmet.

Last hurrah

You’ve got to be selfish here. Let’s say you’re Alan Brogan. You’ve been at this craic now for well over a decade. You’re coming to the last hurrah but you’re still fit and you’re still mad to play. But in every game, all you’re getting is the last 15-20 minutes when the result is long decided. You could come on and score 10 points and it won’t matter a damn. You’ll get no credit for it.

Now let’s say you’re Ciarán Kilkenny and you’re the one keeping Alan Brogan on the bench. Are you going to ease yourself into this Fermanagh game? Not a chance. You’re going to take a shot at the posts the first chance you get. You’re going to go bull-headed for the first breaking ball you see.

You’re going to attack the game because you know that there’s a replacement sitting in the stand only itching for you to get the curly finger. And because you know that your three points scored in the first half when the game is there to be won are worth far more than the four points your replacement scores in the last 20 minutes when it’s turned into a training session.

So on a personal level, you have to find that fear somewhere. If all it is is fear of losing your place for the next day, that can be plenty. You just need the fear to be real. You can’t fake fear. It’s either there or it isn’t.

Players don’t care about anything outside playing and winning. They genuinely couldn’t care less about other counties, except when they’re going to be playing against them. If you’re from Kerry or Kilkenny or Dublin or Tipperary, you don’t give a damn about championship structures or the plight of the weaker counties or any of that carry-on.

All the Dublin players will be interested in is how much they can beat Fermanagh by. There is no collective fear within the Dublin squad of losing the game. How can there be? The first time most of the Dublin players would have heard any of the Fermanagh players’ names would have been in the last five days at best. They might have come across one or two playing college football but that would be the height of it.

They’re heading into the unknown to a certain extent. Everything is on video these days so they can do a bit more preparation than we could in my time but there’s still an element of walking into a door in a dark room here.

Funny enough, I always found with these kind of games that whoever we got always seemed to have a good midfielder in their ranks. We got Wicklow one year and I ran into Pat Byrne, a mountain of a man. In Tipperary, I had Derry Foley to deal with. In Limerick, probably the toughest opponent I ever faced in John Quane.

The Gooch would be inside roasting some turkey of a corner-back while I’d be having lumps taken out of me around the middle of the field. I’d be starting the game thinking I’ll just settle in here and field a few kick-outs and instead I’d find myself up against some big bony hulk of a lad who is full of pride and doesn’t know when to stop. That’s what it felt like anyway. Like I said, players are selfish.

Dublin’s problem is not coming this weekend. It’s coming in a month’s time when they find themselves in an All-Ireland semi-final without having had a serious game since the back end of the league. And just like complacency, what they’re going to face then can’t be talked around. It has to be experienced.

Dublin have been bitten before at the semi-final stage, by Donegal last year and Mayo three years ago. So they know what it’s like to be after strolling through game after game winning handy only to be caught when the pressure comes on. That’s the one thing Dublin have to be worried about.

Dull game

Put it this way – I’d say Gavin would rather be facing Cork on Sunday. With the best will in the world, Dublin could really do with a fixture against a Division One team. It’s the beginning of August now and the whole thing needs to start cranking up fairly soon.

I was at Fermanagh's game against Westmeath last weekend – so was Eamonn Fitzmaurice. Even if Kerry had ended up playing Fermanagh, he wouldn't have gone away with a whole lot to analyse. It was a dull game between two limited enough teams. To me, Fermanagh's midfield was the key to their win, even though Tomás Corrigan took all the plaudits. Michael Darragh Macauley won't have everything his own way around that sector on Sunday.

But there’s no point kidding ourselves that a shock is on the cards. This is the sort of assignment that Dublin are very good at taking care of. It’s all been straightforward for them so far. And that’s okay in May and June and even July but this is all going to get real very soon. They want to be getting into the All-Ireland mindset. You don’t go into an All-Ireland trying to find ways to talk up your opponents. You don’t go into it trying to guard against complacency.

Most of all, you don’t want to be going into an All-Ireland semi-final having won all your games at 75-80 per cent. Because what can happen so easily is you find yourself coming up against a team that has had to play at 90-100 per cent a couple of times already in the summer. You can’t always just press a button to go and match them.

We don’t know if Dublin are going to win the All-Ireland. But we can be sure of one thing – if and when they do lose a game, the fact that they weren’t tested all year is going to be one of the reasons why.