Dublin CEO John Costello has described and "mean-spirited" and "inflammatory" comments made by Irish Times columnist Darragh Ó Sé about county forward Diarmuid Connolly. Writing back in June Ó Sé focused on how teams deal with outstanding opponents or 'franchise players' as he termed them.

In the course of the piece, dealing with a number of players, the Kerry All-Ireland winner suggested that provoking Connolly - “pulling his tail” - might be an effective way of dealing with him or testing his temperament.

Writing in his annual report to next week’s county convention, Costello had this to say:

“Of course, you could argue ‘the ball was throw-in’ very early in the summer ahead of any potential Dublin v Kerry clash. In a pre-championship preview, legendary Kerry footballer, Darragh Ó Sé, as good as placed a target on the back of one of our most outstanding footballers, Diarmuid Connolly.

“In my opinion, some of the content was mean-spirited and the choice of language was somewhat inflammatory.”

This is the full text of Ó Sé’s remarks from 24th June;

“You don’t normally associate Dublin with that sort of beautifully balanced player. They’ve had great players down the years driving on from midfield or banging in goals inside. But never really the sort of silky, two-footed half-forward that Connolly is. So how do you get at Connolly? To me, there’s still a bit of a scamp in him. His temperament has got better over the years but I still think there’s something to be said for pulling his tail and seeing if he’ll hiss back at you.

“Years ago we were doing a bit of video analysis with Jack O’Connor. Jack was pointing out some aspect of play but had to pause the video because up in the top corner of the screen Mossy Lyons was rolling around on the ground with his man. “What’s going on there, Mossy?” asked Jack. “Ah, tis oul off-the-ball stuff, Jack, you need to know no more about it.”

“With a player as good as Connolly, sometimes that’s all you have left. A bit of don’t-ask-don’t-tell stuff off the ball. See if his temper is as reformed as they say. It’s nothing to be proud about but if you think a player has a weakness, you have a responsibility to find it.”