Derry boss Rory Gallagher admitted All-Star Conor Glass has a fight on his hands to be fit for their Ulster SFC opener.
Saturday week's quarter-final clash with Fermanagh initially looked to be a soft draw for the reigning champions.
But with the Ernesiders securing promotion to Division 2 and Derry now concerned over injuries to Glass and fellow All-Star Chrissy McKaigue, it's not quite so straightforward.
Read next: Dublin 4-6 Derry 0-11 Dubs crowned Division Two champions in chaotic Croke Park clash
Glass came off early in the second-half at Croke Park after feeling a hamstring twinge while man-marker McKaigue didn't start at all as he nurses a similar concern.
Gallagher said of ex-AFL player Glass: "He nipped his hamstring. It's minor but with the Championship only 13 days away, you don't take chances. Same with Chrissy, he could have played if this was a Championship game.
"With Conor it was just, 'Get him out of there'. It's not a long-term injury, he just nipped it, but it's still going to be a race against time. We won't be taking any risks with him, it's going to be a long summer no matter what with the new Championship format.
"It was obviously disappointing, I thought he started the game really well. One of the big pluses for ourselves is that between himself and Brendan Rogers, we have a midfield that's the real deal.
"In the first-half, the two of them were outstanding. You're coming up against Brian Fenton and James McCarthy, you've Tom Lahiff hanging about there, brilliant players.
"The Dublin goalkeeper caused us a lot of problems in Celtic Park and I thought we did really well this time, we made him go long an awful lot and did well on their kick-out."
Having won the McKenna Cup earlier in the year, this was Derry's first loss in 12 competitive games.
They also lost just one game in last year's league and Gallagher admitted that winning so regularly hasn't necessarily done them any favours.
He said: "We got everything our own way in the other games. I'm delighted to get tested like that. I think Dublin will be glad of the game as well, I'm not sure what Dessie Farrell said, but we set a different type of puzzle to probably a lot of the other teams they played. From our perspective, it's a huge different type of scenario that we're coming up against with them than the teams we have played.
"I think it was a brilliant league, we're delighted to get to Division 1. We are delighted to learn. The two games against Dublin we have learned more than we learned in 18 league games before that, apart from the day against Galway last year."
Asked what Derry found out about themselves from this game in particular, Gallagher said it wasn't so much about the goals they conceded as the scores they didn't get at the other end.
He said: "We found out that we're still not putting up enough scores when we should. A lot of the games we've played over the last couple of years, we've run away with them. Our lack of clinical edge hasn't been found out. We didn't punish Dublin in the first-half with a number of easy scoring chances. Any mistake you make against any top-level team like that, you're going to struggle."
Gallagher couldn't help but heap praise on Dublin forward Con O'Callaghan who didn't actually score but still took the Man of the Match award for his creative wizardry.
Gallagher said: "Some of Con O'Callaghan's movement was absolutely brilliant. The counter-attacks, they were trying to play them at a really hard pace, even in the first-half.
"As I say, we haven't found out an awful lot about ourselves from playing the vast majority of teams in Division 2 so it was great to play Dublin and to see them bringing on the number of players they did and getting a feel for them."
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