DONAL BURKE SAYS he understands the decisions of three Dublin team-mates to opt out of Micheál Donoghue’s panel for 2023.
In recent days it emerged that Liam Rushe, Chris Crummey and Cian O’Callaghan will all be unavailable for Dublin next season as they plan to go travelling.
Burke confirmed the news that the trio won’t be involved for Donoghue’s first season in charge.
“Yeah they are (going travelling),” he said. ‘They’ve given brilliant service to Dublin hurling so you can’t really fault them for making that (decision). There’s more to life than hurling at the end of the day so you can’t be holding grudges against them.
“They’ve been absolute stalwarts for the last 10 years. Delighted for them now that they can put their personal lives first which sometimes has to be done.”
Burke plays his club hurling alongside Rushe, who transferred to Na Fianna from his native St Patrick’s Palmerstown in 2020.
Burke is captain of the Glasnevin club as they prepare to face Kilmacud Crokes in the Dublin SHC final for the second successive year on Sunday week.
“Massive, massive addition,” he says of Rushe. “He was probably one of the best to come out of Dublin, one of the best in the game so when you get a player like that it’s a massive addition to any club.
“He’s a natural leader. When things are going bad like at the weekend he was probably man of the match at six, when things were going bad he was coming out with some unbelievable catches and some big plays. He’s a born leader on and off the pitch. We’ve quite a lot of young lads on our team so he’s someone to look up to. It’s a big role.”
Rushe, 32, struggled with injuries this year and only made one appearance in the championship.
Burke confirmed he’ll be back in the fold next season, while a welcome boost for the Dubs was the news that Eoghan O’Donnell will be returning to the hurling fold following his brief sojourn to Dessie Farrell’s football squad.
“He told us anyway before that it was never in doubt,” said Burke. “So it’s a great addition always to have him.”
Dublin are keen to move on from a poor campaign where they failed to progress from the Leinster championship.
“It was definitely disappointing because I was off for the summer studying, so I was planning on being a full-time hurler basically.
“Especially the way the campaign started, we had a great win against Wexford and we thought the (All-Ireland) quarter-finals or even coming out of Leinster was definitely on the cards. It was very disappointing then to go out the way we did. I took a break after that to rebuild and then it was onto the club then.”
Super Spurs top of the league, the future is looking bright, roll on Liverpool!
Was there myself, they showed great character yesterday and are playing as a unit. Write Spurs off at your peril!
Great start for Spurs 6 pts and top of the table – QPR and the Hammers not the toughest start, but we lost 3 times to the latter last season. Cautiously optimistic, too early to be anything else …
Harry needs to get over it! He is where he is through his own fault and no one else’s.
Well in fairness if his dog hadn’t opened that bank account everything would have been ok.
Nacer Chadli woke up for once
Nacer Chadli woke up for once