We’ve become smarter footballers: Philly McMahon

Dublin defender Philly McMahon reckons the on-field game-management of his team-mates improved Jim Gavin’s side this year.

The Dubs were pushed all the way by Mayo in two All-Ireland SFC finals after coming back from in arrears at half-time against Kerry in the semi-final.

“In every changing room after winning an All-Ireland, the elephant in the room is winning the back-to-back.

“You talk that up so much that it can cause you to think of things you shouldn’t be thinking of, I suppose. If you’re thinking about winning it, you’re already in a losing battle," says Philly.

“I think we’ve become much smarter footballers. And are able to adapt on the pitch a bit better. We don’t have to wait for the management to make a decision for us.

“That was definitely something we lacked in 2014 when Donegal came up with a tactic that we hadn’t seen, that we didn’t adapt to on the pitch.

“This year we came up against all the eventualities and we were able to deal with them.

That’s because we’ve become smarter footballers - we understand our sport a little bit better.

“We’ve had the management team drilling all the possibilities into us. They had us ready and we didn’t see anything different, I suppose, against Mayo," adds the Ballymun Kickhams man.

“What happened against Donegal (in 2014) was that we were playing a system that worked for us all the way up to it. They saw a bit of a gap to go after and it worked for them.

“If we were smarter footballers, we would have copped on after they scored that goal and made sure we’d someone covering that space where they were coming through. You’d be tagging their runners off the kickout. Overall it’s experience, isn’t it?”