By Paul Keane

It tells the tale of a remarkable few years for Philly McMahon and Dublin that collecting the Leinster SFC title with a cumulative 22 points to spare has left some a little concerned.

The eight-point winning margin against Kildare last weekend was Dublin's lowest in a provincial final since overcoming Meath by seven in 2013. Similarly, last month's six-point semi-final win over Meath was Dublin's tightest game in scoring terms in Leinster since beating the same opposition in the 2012 final.

The problem for Dublin, of course, is that even when winning well now they are immediately benchmarked against their double digit wins of previous seasons.

'It's one of those things,' shrugged ultra experienced defender McMahon. 'For me, you can only play and perform and then move on to the next phase. That's what the job is about.

'What other people think around that, in terms of what narrative is created because we're not winning by a certain number of points or because teams are getting purple patches, like, that's just the way the game is.

'You can't just have a perfect performance in every game. You can't just be hammering teams every game. It's just not the way sport works, in any field sport. For us, it's important that we keep growing each game, keep building our performance and keep learning. That's all that matters within our group.'

McMahon, one of a handful of Dublin players chasing down a ninth All-Ireland medal, is hoping to feature for the first time in this year's Championship on Saturday week when Dublin play Mayo in the All-Ireland semi-finals at Croke Park.

The 33-year-old Ballymun man remains a key part of manager Dessie Farrell's plans having came on as a sub in the Allianz League against Roscommon, Kerry and Donegal.

'I would say it's a different period rather than challenging or a struggle," said defender McMahon of his personal battle to get back into the team. "It's a different period in my career. I suppose it's kind of new in that it's new for me but also I've seen a lot of players go through this. You take learnings from those players and bring it in to what I'm doing and try to help the squad in whatever way I can.'

McMahon spoke in the past of being motivated by his desire to win an All-Ireland medal as a regular in the team. He would ultimately achieve that feat several times over and it would appear as if this may be his goal again, to win another All-Ireland medal on the field of play?

'Well no, it's different obviously because there are so many variables that feed into your whole career,' replied McMahon. 'What I've come to realise is that there's only so much you can control at a certain point of your career.

'So no matter how fit you are or how well you're playing, you don't necessarily control if you're going to be playing or not because it depends on the boys in front of you, on how they're doing, it depends on what the management (think), on what kind of team you're playing against, there are lots of variables that feed into why you should be playing or why you aren't playing.

'All you can do is give yourself the best chance to put yourself in a position to do a job for the team. That's where I am at the minute.'