Jim Gavin: “We’ll give Stephen every chance”

Dublin manager Jim Gavin has not ruled team captain Stephen Cluxton out of Sunday's Leinster SFC final against Laois in Croke Park (4.0).

Stephen suffered a lower back injury against Longford in the provincial semi-final and was replaced by Evan Comerford, last year's U21 All-Ireland winning keeper who was also eligible until coming on last time out for this year's U20 side.

At Tuesday morning's pre-final press briefing Jim said that Cluxton was “a little bit tender,” as a result of the late challenge that saw Longford’s James McGivney red-carded and added “so we'll make that assessment over the coming days”.

“Stephen is a tough guy, mentally very strong, determined, so we'll just have to see over the coming days how he progresses.

“I'll leave all those assessments to the medical team and the player.

“Ultimately it's a player's call, to say whether he's available for selection. So I'll talk to them over the coming hours and days and we'll see how that goes out.”

If Cluxton was ruled out Comerford would be expected to deputise.

“Evan would have played obviously two league games as well this year, did very, very well," said Jim.

“But yeah he's been consistently there and that's a testament to his determination for his sport, he's a great passion for it and that's very apparent when you're around him, each time you train with the team, he's a great leader.

“But as I said we'll give him (Cluxton) every chance and see how it is.”