Brolly, who appeared as a pundit on yesterday's 'The Sunday Game Live' coverage, took to his Twitter page to offer some further post-match analysis.

"So much for Dublin's 'playing the game the right way' philosophy. Their last quarter display was a master class in cynicism," he tweeted, referring to the closing stages which were pockmarked with fouls as Dublin defended a slender lead.

So much for Dublin's "playing the game the right way" philosophy. Their last quarter display was a master class in cynicism.

— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) September 22, 2013

Jim Gavin's men picked up four yellow cards in the final 10 minutes and had to play on with the injured Rory O'Carroll and Eoghan O'Gara on the pitch, having used their full compliment of substitutes by the 53rd minute.

It made for a particularly ugly finish to a final that never really caught fire football-wise, with both sides failing to match their swashbuckling performances from the previous rounds.

Brolly gave a further assessment of the clash this morning, adding: "A very poor final riddled with errors and bad displays, capped by a last quarter of appalling cynicism. Bring back Donegal. All is forgiven!"

Brolly, of course, made headlines earlier in the Championship for his live on-air outburst about Sean Cavanagh's "rugby tackle" challenge on Conor McManus during Tyrone's All-Ireland quarter-final tie against Monaghan. He suggested that Tyrone were "systematically coaching" such deliberate fouling and cynical play.

Dublin's foul-strewn attempts to get over the finish line yesterday drew comparisons with Mayo's own efforts to close out their 0-19 to 0-16 semi-final defeat of the Dubs 12 months ago.

With another tongue-in-cheek tweet, Brolly said: "In fairness though, Mayo were getting comeuppance for the final quarter of last year's semi-final."

He did hail Dublin captain Stephen Cluxton as the best player in the game at present, labelling him "an extraordinary, ground breaking Gaelic footballer", and there is no doubt that the goalkeeper's inch-perfect kick-outs - allied to his two points from placed balls - helped Dublin come to the fore in the second half.

Meanwhile, Dublin manager Jim Gavin had his own gripes with the performance of referee Joe McQuillan during a game in which the Leinster champions were penalised on 32 occasions. Mayo, for their part, only conceded 12 frees.

The heavy free count against the Metropolitans led to some frustrated challenges late on according to Gavin, who reckons that his players have been unfairly treated by referees throughout the 2013 Championship.

"I think we had seven frees in the game? Twelve? That's just beyond me. I can't understand that. I really can't," said the Round Towers, Clondalkin clubman.

"That's one of the very disappointing things. Not only were we playing Mayo but we were playing the referee as well. That free count is just not acceptable. Anybody here can ask me are Dublin a cynical team…we're not.

“At the end, that was just Dublin players getting frustrated. For the whole game, there is a double count going against us. All the time. And it's not only today. We probably held our counsel for most of the games but that has been the trend in all the games."

"We are getting very few frees, particularly from the forward division. It's a fight that we have in every game, that opposition players are getting more frees than we are and we work very hard on the art of defending and the technical tackle. It's disappointing."