Philly McMahon excited by Dubs next challenge in quarters

Dublin senior footballers will not know their SFC quarter-final opponents until this weekend but what defender Philly McMahon does know is that it will be a step up in class from their games to date.

The Dubs cruised to their sixth Leinster SFC in-a-row with relative comfort when defeating Laois, Meath and Westmeath but the business end of the Championship is just around the corner as Jim Gavin's men are in action on Saturday week (August 6, Croke Park, 6pm).

“We’re going to be playing one of three Division 1 teams that are left and they are teams that definitely have potential and want to win things as well.

"They will be tough teams to prepare for. It’s exciting because that’s what you want. You want to be challenged," says Philly.

The Ballymun Kichams man feels that Dublin are improving as the summer evolves and despite the absence of All Star defenders, Rory O'Carroll and Jack McCaffrey, the defence have been coping well.

“Every game we play we try to step up anyway. It’s not that we start so low or that our intensity is so low at the beginning of the year. It’s just that as the year goes on we start to become physically better and tactically and technically better as well,” adds Philly.

"In terms of my preparations, it’s to go out and win the individual battle with whoever I’m marking and obviously then support the rest of the lads around me so that doesn’t change," he explains.

"Winning the All-Ireland last year, there’s a target on your back no matter what so I have to look at different areas where I can make my game a little bit better – like I did last year – so I’m looking for ways to try and improve my game this year."

"We believe we’re doing good enough in defence. Obviously in the Laois game they scored two goals but we were ahead a good bit at that stage.

"It was good, again it was the first game and we learnt from that, we’ve tightened up since that and we’re getting stronger each game and each training session as a defensive unit and that’s from the forwards back.

"We never had a defensive system based around two players – it’s based around the whole team from our forwards back – so it doesn’t change if two players are not there."

Philly McMahon and Sinéad Goldrick attended a photoshoot on Portmarnock beach to promote AIG Insurance’s offer of a 10 per cent discount when travel insurance is bought online. Go to www.aig.ie or call 1800 344 455 for a quote.