Even though he has already bagged four All-Ireland medals, Philly McMahon is constantly striving to up his game.

Dublin's irrepressible defender is enthusiastically looking forward to the challeges of the 2017 season, where the Dubs will bid to retain their national league, Leinster and All-Ireland crowns.

"I love looking at the analytics, the statistics, the nutrition side of it, the physical side of it, the mental side of it, tactics, technical, I love the whole lot. It's kind of a new area, it's called performance training," he told gaa.ie.

"A good part of Paul O'Connell's book that I read was at the start, where he says he's always chasing to have his best performance. One of years he had a really good year and after that for the rest of his career he was always trying to get to that stage again. And that's similar to what I'm like.

"When you look back after the year you've had and say, 'Is there things I can improve on?' And you bring them into the next year.

"When you have a period of downtime and you go on a holiday, your head gets in a good place and you get eager to go back and play, but your body has to follow. So it takes time for your body to get back into it."

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