GAA Features

JOE spoke to Dublin midfielder and Young Hurler of the Year about a disappointing campaign, Anthony Daly, Galway and who will win this weekend’s semi-final.

It was a tough year for the Dubs as they bowed out of Championship 2012 having reached an All-Ireland semi-final the year before. Some hurlers on the side like Liam Rushe had known nothing but success and progress with the Dubs until then.

Rushe had a few provincial titles at underage level and last year made a big step-up, winning an All-Star. Big things were expected this year as the Dubs welcomed back some of their star players from long-term injuries. Unfortunately they exited Leinster early before losing to Clare in the qualifiers.

We spoke to Liam about the campaign, Anthony Daly’s future as manager, his predictions for the All-Ireland semi-final between Kilkenny and Tipperary this weekend and his role as an Opel Kits for Clubs Ambassador.

I obviously want him to stay. I hope he will, I’m sure he will, but sure I might as well put some pressure on him in the media too you know!

JOE: First of all you’re over in Boston at the moment after a long Championship season, just enjoying yourself.

Liam Rushe: Yeah I’m just chilling on holiday. You know the past few seasons it’s been a bit late playing until August each summer, so this year I decided I’d get away for a bit. So I’ve been down in New York and now I’m in Boston, just living the dream as they say!

JOE: I suppose given the success of the minors the past few years and the senior last year, it’s a long hard slog of a summer for players like yourself, who are still only 22...

LR: [Pause] Yeah I suppose but these are the choices you make and the sacrifices you have to make.

I’d be lying if I said I went back to college after the summer and didn’t get jealous of some of the stories you hear from the other lads from college that are off on holidays each summer, but I’m delighted to be in Boston and I’ll take this opportunity while I can.

JOE: It’s probably nice to have a break from the Dubs after the disappointing year this year. A lot of onlookers expected Dublin to kick on with the return of Stephen Hiney, Tomás Brady and Conal Keaney.

Have yourself and the team sat down to look and see where things went wrong this year?

LR: It will take weeks, months even to figure out what went wrong with us. We just seemed...lethargic all year. I don’t know what complacency crept in.

Maybe we thought that with the lads with the cruciates coming back that they’d all just slot in and we’d be better than ever and we forgot all the hard work we had to do together to get to a semi-final last year. Just a little bit of complacency crept in and we’ll kick that out for next year.

JOE: You’re still a young side, do you think this year might be a good learning curve?

LR: [Laughs] We’re not that young, we’re pushing on a bit.

I think we might have taken it for granted and didn’t appreciate how hard it is and how few years you have. We need to take a look at that, you’re talking your career being over at 30 or 32 max, you’ve got a short space of time to do something.

It just feels like we threw away a year and a year’s chance.

JOE: There’s a lot of similarities between yourselves and the side that knocked you at this year, Clare. They have had a lot of underage success and looked quite hungry in Ennis.

Your boss Anthony Daly knows Clare really well and Davy Fitzgerald too. What did he say to you beforehand to let you know how tough it was going to be?

LR: Oh we knew, and if anyone knew Daly knew.

He informed us of how intense it was going to be and how intimidating it was going to be in front a packed crowd down there on a sunny day as well.

We were ready for it, we thought we were ready for it and to be honest it was all going to plan until 10 minutes into the second half when one of their players was sent off and we just dropped the ball.

It happens again and again. You see it in so many matches a man gets sent off a team and yet they still take the impetus, we just switched off and it slipped away from us. We were forewarned but it was just a very poor error.

JOE: Then a few days later the Dublin minors beat the Clare minors to book their place in the All-Ireland minor final. Are you and the other senior Dublin players aware when you’re playing of this conveyor belt of talent coming up behind you ready to take your place?

LR: [Laughs] If they don’t know they’ll know fairly shortly!

You can already feel the pressure, we’ve had a few lads come in from last year and I think a lot more are already pushing.

Looking at this year, they’re in an All-Ireland final again and absolutely flying it. So we’d nearly want to hurry on their development as soon as possible so we can have the best possible team to pick from.

JOE:  How important is Anthony Daly to that process? We all know how he and Richie Stakelum have an eye on the development of all the underage teams and indeed on yourself when you were coming up through the ranks. How important is Daly to those players’ development?

LR: He’s the link man, he’s gone to see all their matches and would know their capabilities quite well and you can see that in how quickly lads are being filtered through the development squads.

JOE: How important for the Dublin set up as whole do you think it is that Anthony Daly stays on?

LR: Well, he’s the lynchpin – there’s no secret there!

He’s held a group together and given it momentum since the start. He’s brought us on, developed us and I think he can bring us on further again.

I obviously want him to stay. I hope he will, I’m sure he will, but sure I might as well put some pressure on him in the media too you know!

JOE: He was obviously part of that Clare team that moved on to another level after winning Munster, not only by winning an All-Ireland but by winning two. Has Daly ever talked to the players about that step up in level Dublin have to take to be in that same category as Kilkenny and Tipperary?

LR: We always talk about ‘cutting loose’ – I mean they were the words for the past year and to ‘cast off the shackles’ which is what Clare did in the 1990s. He’d try to bang home the same message – you can do all your preparation but you have to go and do it on the day, there’s no point in doing all the work and being unbelievable if you can’t bring it out.

JOE: We’ve also seen Galway reach their first All-Ireland final since 2005 and a lot of people would have put Galway and Dublin in the same bracket in the league this year and over the past few years, maybe even Dublin in a bracket ahead of Galway.

Are you encouraged to see their success this year and beating Kilkenny in a Leinster final?

LR: Encouraged and then frustrated, you know?

It’s like you said - we have been neck-to-neck with them the past few years and it’s really encouraging to see someone kicking on. Anthony Cunningham seems to have done a great job there.

It’s fantastic to see and they’re all pulling the same direction together.

Congratulations to them, but my only thought is that it could have been us, we just dropped the ball this year somehow.

JOE: This weekend we’ll see their opponents for the final decided in a semi-final between two teams Dublin have got to know really well over the past few years in Kilkenny and Tipp- what way do you see that going?

LR: [Laughs] That’s impossible to call!

It’s a toss of coin like... honestly...[Long pause as Liam considers his answer]... I will...say a draw or maybe Tipperary by a point or two?

Ah! But sure then you have Kilkenny coming in the back-door with all those matches played like... No, it’s impossible to call.

It will be a good game anyway!

JOE: On the JOE website over the past few weeks we have had a debate over how the winner of the final will more than likely come from this weekend’s semi-final. Would you agree with that or would you say Galway stand a good chance against Tipp or Kilkenny?

LR: Oh I’d say Galway definitely stand a chance, you only have to look to the way they handled Cork.

At the same time I’d possibly agree with that, the winner of the semi-final this weekend will have won a tough physical game and you’d possibly have to tag the winners as favourites.

I wouldn’t say the odds would be too heavy in their favour though...I think if Kilkenny get through it, it will be some feat to beat Kilkenny in two finals in the one year.

JOE: You're speaking to me today about the Opel Kits for Clubs programme of which you’re a brand ambassador, your own club St Patrick’s in Palmerstown is traditionally more of a Gaelic football club. There’s obviously been done a tremendous amount of work done in Palmerstown to focus on hurling like a lot of other clubs in Dublin?

LR: Yeah there has been and myself and a few of the others have been involved in training camps and trying to get kids out. It’s just all over Dublin now.

At one stage there was just one team to follow and get kids interested in but now a lot of good work has gone on for years and kids have got players to look up to in hurling.

JOE: Obviously some of the older lads in Palmerstown would consider themselves Gaelic football people first and foremost – how have they been equipping to life with Palmerstown being recognised a lot more for hurling over the past few years?

LR: [Laughs] They’re laughing anyway.

It probably was just a football club for a long time and we only went senior in hurling a few years ago. That being said there’s no trouble about it – we’re probably a strange club in that we have 8 or 9 lads in both the hurling and football teams so there’s good form and co-operation there with the old guard, which is good to see.

JOE:  Finally when you were approached to be an ambassador for the Opel Kit for Clubs campaign why did you decide to get on board with it?

LR: It’s a fantastic initiative – 200 points if you buy a car or 10 points if you test drive a car or just to get your Opel serviced and in return they’re offering a lot of great gear that lots of clubs need and every club are fundraising for. It’s a simple idea but it could be very beneficial for a lot of clubs and I think people should get on board. Check out Opel Kit for Clubs online and like it on Facebook!

JOE: Thanks Liam.

LR: No problem lads.

Liam Rushe was speaking to JOE as an ambassador for the Opel Kit for Clubs campaign -  For information on Kit for Clubs logon to: www.opelkitforclubs.com or visit Opel’s Kit for Clubs Facebook page: www.facebook.com/opelkitforclubs