Dessie Farrell says he’s not bothered about the pressure of relegation after his Dublin side slumped to another defeat.
The 2-11 to 0-12 loss to Mayo, following reverses at the hands of Armagh and Kerry, means that Dublin have lost three successive League games for the first time since 2001, when Farrell was captain of the team under Tommy Carr.
Dublin have four games remaining against Kildare, Tyrone, Donegal and Monaghan, with only the Donegal tie at home, from which to salvage enough points to avoid relegation, something they haven’t suffered since 1995.
Farrell said: “We just look at it case by case, game by game and almost to the point of training session by training session and day by day.
“If you get caught up in the pressure of League points and the struggle for survival or whatever it is, it doesn’t lend itself to the types of performances we want.
“We’re not concerned about the pressure. We’ve a plan and it’s a bigger picture around trying to be really, really competitive come the summer time while introducing the new players that we have been through the League and getting it to a point that we’ve those younger lads properly immersed and embedded in the squad and remaining really, really competitive and that’s the name of the game for us.”
Farrell admitted that he was particularly disappointed with the second half performance as Mayo comfortably held them at arm’s reach and conceded just 0-3.
“I thought we did a lot of things right in the first half, conceded two goals that you just can’t afford to be conceding at this level but definitely the first half was much more positive from our perspective. Second half not so much.
“We’re in an uncertain situation at the minute and all we can do is keep working hard and keep working hard and keep trying to learn from previous performances and take it one game at a time. We’ll look at the tape again and figure out what we were doing wrong, what we were doing right and try and bring those learnings with us the next day.”
Farrell said that he’s optimistic, however, that the “cohesion” his side is currently lacking will materialise.
“Some of the younger players, it’s a big step up and there’s a lot of learning for them to understand systems, gameplans, that type of thing but they’re trying really, really hard.
“They’re really keen and eager which is great to see, attitude is spot on and to be fair the senior players have been great to embrace so many new players into the squad and obviously they’re great teachers in their own right so, overall, we’re very happy with the dynamic and what everyone is bringing to the table, it’s just the performances haven’t been where we’d like them to be.
“Probably lacking a little bit of cohesion at the minute but I’m very optimistic that will come and it has to come.”
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