Bernard Brogan says there are many more naturally gifted footballers in the Dublin camp than him.

Widely recognised as one of the finest attackers of the modern era, the former Footballer of the Year reckons the likes of Cormac Costello and Ciaran Kilkenny have more natural ability and attributes his own success to hard work:

"Some of those lads are much more naturally gifted footballers than me," he told gaa.ie. "I'm a Dublin fan, I love playing for Dublin and every time I wake up in the morning I give thanks that I am able to be in the situation I'm in and I go out in every training session I make sure that I'm good enough in Jim's eyes, the management's eyes to get my place. I'm lucky enough that I have played every game I have been fit for. I want to continue that for another year or two. That's my objective to keep pushing.

"I'm not a Cormac Costello or a Ciaran Kilkenny that is just naturally gifted. I worked really hard to get to where I am with Dublin. As you know I spent three years on the bench and made my debut at 24, and had a cruciate injury at 20. I did it the hard way, I  got to play with Dublin the long way around, so I appreciate that and I'm very conscious of it when I'm playing.

"I just think the guys are amazing footballers. Paul Mannion, Cormac and Ciaran came up through the ranks and are a lot more mentally stronger and physically able for the senior set up and were able to come into a team and just roll into it.

"I obviously went the longer route around it and it took me a while to break into it and get my head right to be able to offer something on the pitch. So from that point of view I think it's a credit to Dublin's underage systems that they have implemented over the last ten years. Having the likes of Cian O'Sullivan coming out of it, Rory O'Carroll, Ciaran Kilkenny, Cormac Costello and now Con O'Callaghan and these lads are coming through.

"They're in that high performance system from U14 all the way up to minor, successful teams. I didn't play underage for Dublin, I didn't get picked. I played minor hurling. I played a little bit of 21s, then I got injured. So I didn't have that kind of upbringing and that high performance training set that these boys came through and it just meant that when they came up to senior level they were comfortable in the surroundings. used to training, used to that atmosphere and that's why they're maybe more comfortable."

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