Dublin are "every bit as defensive" as the rest of the teams chasing All-Ireland glory, according to Galway captain Damien Comer.
The 24-year-old has come up against the four-in-a-row hunters twice in the Allianz League and is adamant that, while attention naturally falls on their exceptional forward lines, they are just as drilled as everyone else down the far end of the field.
Comer hit three points against Jim Gavin’s men in the final, a game that Dublin won with a late flurry, and was on target in the drawn match last March in Salthill.
The stats at the end of the regular league season showed that Dublin had accumulated 131 points (17 more than next highest scorers) and conceded 99 (16 more than the mean Galway backs).
"A lot of people criticise us for being defensive but I think they’re every bit as defensive as any other team," he told RTÉ Sport.
"They get men behind the ball when they don’t have the ball and they’re very clever when they attack.
"They attack at great pace and if you turn the ball over stupidly, they will counter and get scores against you.
"They’re that bit more clinical than other teams.
"But they’re definitely as defensive as any other team you come across. Playing in the full-forward line, you have plus one, plus two at times.
"We come for a lot of criticism as a team for being defensive but I think it’s the way the game has gone. There isn’t a team out there that don’t go defensive."
And while their paths may not cross again, the Annaghdown clubman’s experience against the champions has given him a definitive line on their mortality.
Monaghan caught the already qualified Dubs out in the last game of the league but their unbeaten run in the Championship now stretches back to August 2014, covering 20 games.
"They definitely are [beatable]," says Comer.
"But we have a long road if we want to have a crack at them again this year.
"Monaghan took them out in the league. We probably had chances and Donegal went very close as well.
"But it won’t matter much if you don’t get near them and get to the Super 8s.
"A lot of people were asking ‘do you get much abuse from the Hill?’ but you’re playing in front of 30 or 40,000 in Croke Park, it’s where you want to be at the end of the year.
"You’ve nothing really (to lose). Obviously, you don’t want to get a hammering by the Dubs, which a lot of teams have done in the league final.
"But you’re going up there with the chance that if you lose, you have a chance to get back there at the end of the year. Whereas other years when we’ve lost in Croke Park, that’s the end of the season.
"You learn a lot from them. Tactically, they’re very astute. You have huge learning curves from there.
"A lot of people would have said, ‘I don’t know if it’s the best thing now for ye, you’re a young side to be playing in the league final against the Dubs’.
"They’re judging it on other teams going up there and taking a hammering, if that happens to ye is there any coming back from it?
"But that’s a daft comment really because you’re playing the All-Ireland champions. Whatever happens, you’re going to learn to some degree from it.
"It’s better than any training game or challenge game.
"We showed in Pearse Stadium that we can match them, albeit they had a few changes.
"We were with them up until the last few minutes in Croker."
Mayo provide Galway’s first test of the summer when the sides meet in the quarter-final of the Connacht Championship on 12 May in MacHale Park.
