It has not been the start that Pat Gilroy will have envisioned.
Although few would have suspected that the former All-Ireland winning football manager could translate the necessary skills to hurling in a National League game or two, Gilroy's Dublin have looked particularly poor thus far.
Two heavy defeats to Offaly and Limerick have book-ended a very narrow win against Antrim in Division 1B.
Not looking anything like a side that will be in the challenge for a Leinster Championship, let alone an All-Ireland, former Waterford hurler John Mullane reckons Gilroy may already be ruing his decision to take on this new role.
Speaking on The Throw-In, Mullane believes that "Dublin were just abysmal" as they went down to a Limerick side that registered 1-26 in the Gaelic Grounds on Saturday night:
I have to ask the question, has Pat Gilroy signed his death warrant by taking on this Dublin job?
It's a massive job he has. They are down the Cuala contingent but some of their play Saturday night was ... it was pre-Anthony Daly era, going back to the mid-noughties when they knew they were beaten going down playing in some games down the country.
Under Clare's Anthony Daly, Dublin hurling made forward strides that any subsequent manager would be hard-pushed to recreate.
Claiming a long overdue Leinster title in 2013, Dublin were unfortunate not to reach an All-Ireland final; losing narrowly to Cork in the semi-final.
Concluding that he feels these are "worrying times for Dublin", the Independent's Vincent Hogan similarly lamented their performance, surprised by the "lack of intensity" that a Pat Gilroy coached team was demonstrating.
With Galway next on the agenda for Dublin's struggling hurlers, a win would be necessary if they wanted to make a push for a league quarter-final. Yet, at the moment, something of an improvement on the poor performances thus far would probably be enough for Gilroy to assure him that he hasn't, as Mullane suggests, "signed his death warrant" in taking on this role.
