Griffin back in the Dublin frame

GAELIC GAMES NEWS:AS IF Dublin's early league form wasn't pleasing enough for manager Pat Gilroy, he can look forward to his panel getting even stronger in the coming weeks.

Defender Paul Griffin is poised to return after nearly a year-long absence due to a knee injury, and in fact played a practice match with Dublin on Monday evening.

“He just played half the game but he was flying, absolutely flying,” says Gilroy. “I suppose he needs four to six weeks to get his fitness levels up. But he worked very hard in getting the knee right. It was great to see him get through it. He took a few knocks and he wasn’t in any way holding back, so it was very positive.”

Griffin sustained the dreaded cruciate ligament tear in Dublin’s league match against Monaghan in March of last year, and has been sidelined ever since. He also trained with Kilmacud Crokes last Saturday ahead of their All-Ireland semi-final on Sunday against Crossmaglen, and could be yet be sprung into action for that game if required.

Gilroy will have the rest of the Kilmacud players available as soon as they finish their club campaign, while Paul Brogan and cousin James Brogan also played with Dublin in Monday’s practice game and are also poised for a return to county action.

Also set to return at some stage over the coming weeks are Dublin’s Sigerson representatives and the county under-21s.

“We have this situation where we do have a lot of players involved in Sigerson and under-21,” says Gilroy. “But I think we are trying to go out and win every match we play in. Even in the O’Byrne Cup, we were trying to win. You take them one at a time. We talked in the last while about trying to get consistency, and I think we are now.”

In the meantime Gilroy turns his attention to Saturday’s round three clash with Kerry in Croke Park – the first time the teams have met in GAA headquarters since Kerry’s 17-point victory in the 2009 All-Ireland quarter-final.

Midfielder Michael Dara Macauley will be available having missed last Saturday’s win over All-Ireland champions Cork with a minor breathing problem but typical of Gilroy, he’s not getting too worked up about the victory over Cork, nor the visit of Kerry.

“Cork, to be fair to them, only came back there at the end of January so we had a three-week start on them. Fitness, I think, played a big part in the win.

“What happened with Kerry in 2009 is in the past, and we have moved on from it. It’s a very different squad now for both teams. I think Kerry have gone through a fair change as well. They have lost a lot of the players that won the All-Ireland the year before last so it’s a different set-up. It’s 2011 and I don’t think it bears any relevance really.”

What is also pleasing for Gilroy is Dublin’s greater spread of scoring forwards in their opening two games, with Bernard Brogan appearing to set up more scores than he’s converting. That, says Gilroy, is the natural result of teams marking Brogan a lot tighter: “I think the opposition have constantly targeted him. He seems to have two men around him. But if there’s two men around him, there should be somebody else free. . . and it happened a lot in the first two games.

“For one of our goals against Cork, four people went to him and left three Dublin players free. So that has to be a good thing for us. It’s up to the opposition to figure out what way they want to do it.”

Dublin’s work rate must also be pleasing for Gilroy but he insists they’ve a long way to go: “Even though our fellas are in reasonably good shape, it’s not near championship fitness. I think there are bigger gaps in Croke Park than you would normally see in a championship game because fellas just don’t have the legs to cover the space they can in summer. You have to take that into account, particularly for defenders.

“The one area certainly for improving is at the back. In most intercounty games if you concede 16 points, it wouldn’t be enough. If you think of all the chances that Cork had, I don’t think it was near good enough for the summer time. You would be very happy with what the defenders would be doing. Again, I would feel that further out the field, we didn’t get pressure on.”

** DUBLIN’S under-21 campaign gets underway in Navan this evening against Meath, and several of their players have already featured with the Dublin seniors earlier this season, including Seán Murray and Dean Rock. The team boasts seven members of last year’s All-Ireland winning team.

DUBLIN U-21(v Meath): R O'Flaherty; K O'Brien, S Murray, G McArdle; D Nelson, J McCarthy, G Seaver; D O Murchú, C Reddin; C Dorney, G McIntyre, G Sweeney; D Stapleton, D Rock, P Ryan.