Michael Fitzsimons expects Dublin boss Pat Gilroy to use last Sunday's O'Byrne Cup defeat to Kildare as motivation for Saturday week's big NFL opener against Kerry at Croke Park.

"That's the way it's looking," the All-Ireland winning defender said.

"We tend to learn a lot from our defeats. So we'll look back over it, see where we went wrong and try and improve."

Having beaten Kerry in their three most recent meetings in the league and championship, Fitzsimons believes Dublin no longer hold any fear of the Kingdom.

"I don't have a hang-up about Kerry," he insisted.

"I don't have any mental scars from being beaten by them repeatedly. It's probably similar to the All-Blacks. A lot of teams fear them because they continually beat them but, luckily enough, a lot of the lads don't have that problem." Tweet

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