Barney Rock is worried that Michael Darragh MacAuley may not make himself available to Dublin in 2018.

The former Footballer of the Year remained on the bench for Dublin's All-Ireland semi-final and final victories over Tyrone and Mayo respectively and 'seventies star Barney - father of Sunday's match-winner, Dean - hopes the all-action midfielder sticks around for another season:

"Going forward it is a fantastic spell for these players and Jim Gavin has moved the team around this year, introduced some young fellas, but it will be important that the spine of the team - the fellas approaching their 30s - stick in there," he told The Irish Daily Mirror.

"I have no doubt that they will because this is a great thing to be involved in. They all get on well together, there is no badness there. I'd say Bernard [Brogan] will be there next year. The one I'd hope will be there next year would be Michael Darragh.

"He looks like he was disappointed not to get on, those two matches in a row. He's lean and mean and looks very, very good, it's just that James McCarthy was playing very, very well and also Brian Fenton. It was very hard to put him in somewhere when the two midfield were playing really well. He was just unlucky."

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