Jim Gavin offered Paul McGinley advice on how to deal with favouritism during a recent conversation he had with the Europe Ryder Cup captain.

Europe are favourites to see off the USA at Gleneagles this weekend, a role which Gavin and his Dublin players are very familiar with. Indeed, they were 1/10 with some bookies before their shock All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Donegal last month.

Stressing that it was a 'private conversation', Gavin told the media yesterday: "The essence of it was dealing with the perception of being favourites going into a game or a competition. That's just an external thing that we couldn't control and the most important thing was control the internal thing of trying to get a performance.

"The most important thing was what the players thought and what the management thought and the relationship between them. That's the nature of sport. People have opinions, journalist have opinions and that's what they are.

"That's why people are passionate about sport, because people have plenty of opinions about the game. Who's going to win, who's favourites?

"I'd be friendly with him (McGinley). Obviously he's a good Dublin supporter and with his dad he's a good Donegal supporter. He's a GAA man first and foremost. I wished him all the best."

The Dublin manager also praised the staff of the Mater Hospital for their treatment of defender Jonny Cooper in the wake of the knife attack on him last weekend.

"He's recovering," Gavin said.

"It's obviously been traumatic for him. It was a violent attack and it was outstanding work by the emergency services and by the medical team and the staff in the Mater."

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