COUNTING THE COST

Cormac and Dublin try to shake off the summer Blues after going from invincibles to losing two of their last three knockout games

- PAT NOLAN

FROM 2015-21, Dublin were unbeaten in 26 knockout Championship games, until Mayo finally ended their run in the All-Ireland semi-final two years ago.

They've now lost two of their last three, last year's quarter-final win over Cork the exception before Kerry edged them out in the subsequent semi-final.

And with Mayo in opposition again this Sunday, Dublin face arguably their most difficult assignment in a quarter-final since the watershed beating they shipped from Kerry in 2009 (below).

Having fallen the right side of so many close-run encounters at the back end of the summer as they subsequently won eight All-Irelands, Cormac Costello is asked to identify where Dublin have been lacking over the past couple of years.

"Any game that you lose that close, you are going to zoom in on everything that went wrong said the Dublin forward. "If you come out the right side of it, like we have many times, it sort of papers over the cracks.

"But our performance wasn't good enough last year in the first half against Kerry and overall they were the better team.

"You would look at some of our chances and our efficiency wasn't great, so they are the main things you would go after."

Another theory could be that they missed the leadership of the most successful captain in GAA history, with Stephen Cluxton in exile for each of the last two campaigns before making a dramatic return ahead of the final round League game earlier this year.