Liam Rushe has defended Dublin hurling manager Ger Cunningham's recent trimming of the county panel. Speaking at an event organised by AIG, sponsors of both Dublin and the New Zealand rugby team, some of whom were also in attendance, the twice-decorated All Star said he was looking forward to the season ahead.

"It's certainly young," he said of the panel, in which a number of long-serving players no longer feature. "It's strong. There's a lot of good players there and I suppose there's a few interesting calls as well in the people brought in, like Canice Maher. Yeah, looking forward to meeting up now in three weeks and seeing what people are made of."

Asked was he surprised by some of the omissions, he struck a stoical note.

“I was surprised by a couple but it’s the nature of sport and the nature of the GAA in particular. Every autumn you look and so-and-so has been dropped from such-and-such a panel. That’s it. Managers pick their panels and things move on. People have different opinions on it and that’s the way it is.”

Unhappy with direction

Not all of the absentees were dropped and there have been a number of withdrawals by players unhappy with the direction of the team under Cunningham’s direction. Again, Rushe wasn’t fazed by the controversies and responded to an interview by another Dublin All Star

Peter Kelly

, expressing his dissatisfaction with the county set-up.

“I didn’t read them specifically but people keep reading them back to me! Ah look: everyone has different opinions. Peter’s entitled to his and I’m not going to get into a tit-for-tat with him over that. He didn’t see eye-to-eye with Ger and pulled out and that’s his prerogative.

“We’re amateurs at the end of the day and if he doesn’t like the set-up or how it’s going, his contribution has been valuable and he’s well within his rights to pull out and he did. I respect him for that.”

Dublin’s most eye-catching achievement since the resurrection of hurling in the city over the past 10 to 15 years was the defeat of then All-Ireland champions Kilkenny on the way to winning the county’s first Leinster title in 52 years in 2013.

Peaked

Rushe said he felt the team had peaked even a little earlier than that year but had been undermined by a catalogue of injuries, so he wasn’t shocked by how few of that team from three years ago remained – just six starters.

“Not too surprised. That team peaked that year and peaked well. You could probably say that it peaked in 2011 and we were at the height of our powers, but we were robbed of a couple of lads with injury and things didn’t go as well.

“It was always a tight panel. We keep harking back to 2013 but we could have been as good in 2011, only we were decimated with injuries, and in 2013 we got lucky with a run and didn’t have a single cruciate [injury] that year although around that time were averaging two a year. Things took their toll and Daly went and a new manager came in and put a different spin on it and that’s it.”