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There is an old saying you will all be familiar with – being outside the tent pissing in or inside the tent pissing out. Former Dublin sledger Ciaran Whelan, who got away with more dirty blows in his career than the entire current Kerry team, is seriously stirring the shit for Pat Gilroy’s Dublin.

Whelan is one of a group of Dublin players that seriously underperformed over the years despite all the hype. He was to the forefront of Pilar Caffrey’s ill-advised regime who bestrode Croker like colossal knobs, running up to the Hill before every game and then proceeded to choke on the highest stage time and again. As he delivers yet another low blow to Dublin’s campaign hopes, has Ciaran forgotten Tyrone in 2005, Mayo in 2006, Tyrone in 2008 and Kerry in 2009?

His latest contribution in the Evening Herald calls for the Dublin players to meet this week without the management: “The players now need to sit down without management and have an honest chat with each other.”

He added: “For the management, this week is about moving on from the Meath defeat. The management team are in grave danger of losing the confidence of their dressing room and they must instill some positivity in the camp and lift the lads’ spirits.”

This was brought about by manager Pat Gilroy’s decision not to allow the players to tog out for their clubs after Meath hammered them. Pat Gilroy seems to us to be an eminently likeable fellow. He doesn’t appear to go in for the hype and bullshit of previous Dublin managers like Caffrey and Lyons and seems genuinely concerned and conscious that if Dublin are to progress they needed to dispense with the old ways and some of the old players who bottled repeatedly in Croker. Last year Pat memorably described his players as startled earwigs which caused us great mirth. It may no have been the wisest thing to say about his players but it revealed an exasperation that his charges could fail to deliver on such a big day.

After that game Whelan announced he was retiring from the Dublin scene. Now he has found a gig that gives him free reign to say whatever he wishes about the Dublin set up. Previously it was recalling Shane Ryan, second-guessing the Dublin tactics . . . what next?

Methinks he doth protest too much. Did Ciaran see the writing on the wall and jump before he was pushed and does he now believe that the pen is mightier than the squad? He certainly believes in taking the piss but then empty vessels make the most noise don’t they?