ANY LINGERING HOPES Dublin fans might have entertained about the possibility of a return to county colours for Stephen Cluxton were officially laid to rest yesterday afternoon in Tullamore, when Dublin manager confirmed that the eight-time All-Ireland winner was not part of his plans for 2022.
“Stephen won’t be involved this year, he wasn’t involved last year” Farrell told reporters after his side’s 2-12 to 0-13 win over Offaly.
“Stephen’s not one for big announcements as you know! There’ll be no fanfare or official announcements from him, but he won’t be involved this year. Out of respect to him, we need to let him live his life and we need to do our own thing, so we know the position and hopefully everyone else knows it at this stage as well”.
Farrell also ruled out a return to county action for Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion, saying that the two men had made their decisions and he had no reason to believe there was a change of mind.
Mannion, who missed tonight’s win for Kilmacud Crokes in the final of the Leinster club championship, has worked with Farrell at many levels of Dublin football, and remains in contact with the Na Fianna man.
“I’ve a very good relationship with Paul going back to development squad years, so we’re in communication. Paul has been clear why he’s stepped away, his position hasn’t changed, and we respect that” Farrell said.
On the other side of the coin, he quashed rumours that either Brian Howard or Con O’Collaghan would be unavailable for the season, saying that both men were part of his panel.
“I don’t know where that stuff comes from, you know yourself what you can do with that!” was his response to a question suggesting that both men had decided to travel this year.
“Those lads will definitely be around. There’s plenty of fuel in the rumour mill around Dublin anyway, that’s for sure!”
Concluding, he said that it had been a very different winter in the Dublin camp, but that he felt they had dealt with the demons of last year’s surprise loss to Mayo at Croke Park.
“It was definitely time for reflection, and in the situation, that’s all you can do, to review and take the learnings from last season, the dimensions that you can improve on, and make things better for the season ahead. That would be quite typical for a team that was in the situation we found ourselves in, and we’ve gone through that process now and we’re looking forward to the season ahead” he concluded.
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Svitolina made a statement after her match v Azarenka that the organisers should ban the sporting tradition of shaking hands after her opponent was booed off the court for not offering her hand out to be ignored. This was her decision to not shake the hands of sporting Russian athletes so don’t be asking authorities in sport to ban a custom that’s traditional sporting etiquette gesture, after all its only a game.
Svitolina expects the organisers Wimbledon to ban handshakes after matches , Ironic comment. Can she not stand the sporting Azarenka being booed off the court today, surely easier to say I should have shook her hand
Svitolina is mostly responsible if not totally for unsporting behaviour but are nt we all suppose to be on Ukraine side so it doesn’t matter just” boo the Russians” anyway