Pundit and former Kerry player Tomás Ó Sé has pulled back from his claim that there is a “scumbag” element on the Dublin team.

Though the football championship likely won’t catch fire for a few months yet, Ó Sé did his best to sprinkle kerosene on it yesterday when he referred to the “scumbag” element within the Dublin team. Speaking during RTÉ’s championship launch on radio yesterday, Ó Sé lauded Jim Gavin’s men in general but drew attention to their darker side too.

“This Dublin team is mentally tough. They can win, they can lose, they can win dirty, they can win when they play poorly,” he said. “They have a mixture of great players. They have a mixture of, for the want of a better word, a scumbag when they need somebody on the team to do the nasty things.”

However, he later withdrew his controversial remark. In a tweet, he said: “Don’t think the Dubs are scumbags at all. Poor choice of words. Meant that they have a few scamps. All great teams have them.”