Dublin manager Pat Gilroy knows only too well that his charges are far from the finished article, but he still feels that they challenge Cork for a place in this year's All-Ireland SFC final.

The sides meet at the semi final stage tomorrow afternoon and Cork are slight favourites to advance to their second consecutive final, but the Dubs win over Tyrone in the quarter-final has put them in with a great shout.

Having struggled over Wexford and then being hammered by Meath in the Leinster championship, it looked as if Dublin's year would be short lived, but they have improved with every game in the qualifiers and are now back in the semi final.

Nonetheless, Gilroy feels that they must show more improvement if they are to topple the Leesiders and reach the final for the first time since 1995, when Gilroy was part of the side that defeated Tyrone.

"As we've said all along, we didn't expect to close gaps on the top teams and maybe with a bit of luck the last day we came out on the right side of a result. But we're always going out to try and win the games. We'll give this a really good run on Sunday and you never know," said Gilroy.

"You only have to look at our last three games in the qualifiers and they were riddled with mistakes. There's massive room for improvement. The last day we gave the ball away too easy when we weren't under pressure. There are other areas where we gave away frees, there are so many areas we can improve on and the players are good enough to improve.

"We'd encourage guys to do the right thing and if they make mistakes, say 'fine'. There's massive improvement there for the team. Whether it's going to happen in this short a space of time, we'll wait and see. Logic would say that Cork, if you look at it, should beat us," he said. "But sport is just not like that. It's all on the day. Anything can happen." Tweet

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