By Cian O'Connell

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Throughout the past decade Dublin have proven to be shrewd dealing with the different set of questions that are being posed.

Philly McMahon’s ability to cope and prosper regardless of the situation remains crucial with his 2015 campaign particularly impressive.

When asked about the contemporary era in which defenders must be willing to roam and attack McMahon offers an interesting reply.  “It's happened a lot this year now, you can see a lot of defenders attacking now this year,” McMahon commented. 

“It’s starting to change the game a little bit and the dynamics of it. I think a lot of backs are probably enjoying it a little bit too much, but it's the way the game is evolving.

“Defenders are starting to get a licence from managers I suppose to get up the pitch. It's always been the philosophy of Jim (Gavin) to go out to express yourself to get up the pitch.

“I was lucky to be able to do that last year. Again, things will start to change tactically now. If backs are allowed to start attack, forwards will be thinking differently as well so it's good to develop the game, develop the tactics of the game and make footballers smarter I suppose and going to a different level, especially defenders.

“You don't want to be just chasing a man around a pitch all day. Sometimes it's nice to have him chase you.”

McMahon reflected on Kerry’s approach in Sunday’s Allianz Football League decider compared to last year’s All Ireland final.

“Well it was a little bit harder on Sunday because Paul Murphy was marking me as I was going out so it was a little bit different to the final last year but I was expecting that.

“But yeah, look, again that takes one of their forwards out. They've a less forward in their forward line so I suppose it's an advantage in that way, but as I've mentioned, teams adapt really quick and I'm sure they've done their homework since last year and that's one of the things that I have to try and look at.

“It's something that I'll have to look at going towards the latter end of the season if we meet them again.”

Ballymun Kickhams star McMahon doesn’t think Dublin are overly burdened with the heavy weight of expectancy.  “Not really, I've said it before the only thing you are looking at is getting that jersey and play every chance you get and enjoy it and express yourself as much as you can,” McMahon remarked.

“As a Dublin player I don't think you listen to anything outside of that and people building that hype up. It's a good place to be, we take nothing for granted and we are lucky to be part of a group that has been successful and hopefully will continue to have success.”

In 2015 McMahon set himself the target of starting in every Championship fixture for Dublin.  What is the objective now? “It's the same,” McMahon commented. “It's the same thing. I think you can get ahead of yourself.

“Standards go up a little bit because you've achieved that but I thought at the start of the year, do the goals change? Probably not. But when you're on the pitch the standards change I think. Off the pitch you want to just get that jersey and if you start thinking of, 'I want to play, I want to be the best player on the team, the best player in the country', whatever it is, you'll find it very hard to get that jersey because you're not focusing on the smaller things and that's what I've kind of peeled back a little bit and said I wanted to do.

“I've definitely seen players over the years that have maybe won player of the year or they've done really well and the year after that they've struggled because they're trying to go beyond what they did the year before.  I think you can't go beyond that unless you've got the basics right first so my plan is to try to compete for the jersey first and improve my standards of what I did in every game.”

Rory O’Carroll and Jack McCaffrey aren’t available for the upcoming summer, but McMahon is encouraged by the swift progress being made by Davy Byrne and John Small

“There is no doubt that the two lads that left are really good defenders,” McMahon acknowledges.  “They brought massive quality to the team.  We have to look at who else we have, the boys that have come in to do the job so far have done a really good job. 

“We obviously would love to have them there, but the players that have come in it is up to them to step up to the plate to bring it on.

“John obviously had a good bit of game time last year, Davy definitely has shown especially from being the Dublin under 21 captain has shown leadership in training. 

“He is capable of marking the best Dublin forwards in training so why can't he do it against Kerry or any other county teams?  He has definitely got the ability to be a really good full-back or corner back.

“John is a clubmate of mine, he is very powerful player, and he is getting better with time.”

McMahon reckons the coaching structures put in place by the Dublin County Board combined with several other factors is why they are currently perched on the summit.

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” McMahon replies when asked about Dublin’s current health. “It generally comes down to so many variables that you can’t actually put it down to one thing.

“You know, it’s just there’s so much and no we can’t say that we just work harder than any other county like.  Structures definitely have been put into the clubs and there are better players being produced because of that.  There is no doubt.

“Then there is an amalgamation of a load of other things have brought us together.  We’re very lucky.  Age could be one of the things.  To be born to be able to play at this age, you could have missed it by two or three years if you were born younger, or maybe you wouldn’t have got as much as the five or six years we’ve had.

“I’ve been part of the Dublin team, 2008 where I would have looked on from the bench and said, ‘God, I’d love to try to help this team develop and win things, and I think that definitely had an influence on players wanting to help Dublin become more successful.

“There’s no doubt that there’s thousands of thousands of kids when I was looking at Dublin were going I’d just love to help them to win an All-Ireland.  I’d love to help them to do that.

 “And then one day that comes true and you do everything you can to try to do it.  I think we’ve had a really bad patch with Dublin and we’ve been unsuccessful with Dublin and we’ve won very little and now that we’re doing all right we’ve won a lot of competitions now. It’s completely turned on its head.”