Rory O'Carroll insists Dublin won't take Longford for granted in Sunday's Leinster SFC quarter-final.
Speaking to The Irish Independent, the Metropolitan's full-back said: "For us, in many ways, to people looking in it's a lose-lose.
"We're expected to win and if we lose, we're branded as losing to a Division 4 team. It's going to be tough either way. They're definitely going to up their game.
"The competition for places would be a huge driving force.
"If you perform poorly, it's going to seriously reduce your chances of starting the next game. That's going to follow on for the season. Nobody wants to put themselves in that position.
"Jim is very focused on the opposition. He wouldn't let our standards slip. We wouldn't prepare for any game differently than another."
The Kilmacud Crokes clubman admitted that Dublin have to focus more on their defending in the months ahead.
"We need to be more defensively minded. We were exposed hugely and we did pay for that.
"There have been times I've been blowing my lungs out trying to get lads back to cover.
"It has changed slightly where the full-back line has that bit more cover. It's really a work in progress. We struggled around it in the League.
"We had no consistent performance, really, throughout (the League). It was very topsy-turvy, so during the summer it is just trying to be more consistent.
"We might have been a bit naive (last year) going all-out attack which felt great, it was really enjoyable to go out and do that. Now we just have to embrace the challenge of beating the blanket defence."
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