Donal Og talks for the sake of talking
KEANEY CALLS OUT CUSACK’S COMMENTS
DUBLIN great Conal Keaney has hit out at Donal Og Cusack’s criticism of their attack, claiming the pundit doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The Sky Blues are through to Saturday week’s Leinster final against Kilkenny – thanks in no small part to their livewire forwards.
The half-forward line of Danny Sutcliffe, Chris Crummey and Donal Burke have registered 2-96 between them since the League resumed.
Goalpoacher Ronan Hayes has been ever present too, though it’ll probably take more to win over Cusack.
Speaking after last November’s Championship loss to Cork, pundit Cusack claimed they’ve lacked ‘top class forwards’ for years, arguing that it’s inexcusable.
But said: “I have heard his comments over the years and a lot of the stuff he says is just for the sake of saying it and to hear himself talking because he does not know what is going on in Dublin.
“I don’t see him at any of the Dublin games, at any of the club games where he sees all these players.
“Okay, some of the lads haven’t performed maybe on certain days but now is the time we are seeing all these lads coming through. And there are lads there.
“So many times we have heard that there’s no wristy hurlers in Dublin and that lads don’t have good wrists, all this rubbish. They don’t say it about any other county but it’s just easy to say it against Dublin.
“The lads are there, the lads are top quality and it’s great to see them showing how good they are on the big days and hopefully it continues for the rest of the year.”
Dublin’s Leinster semi-final win over Galway last weekend was their first over a top ranked county in over two years, in the League or Championship.
But Keaney said he wasn’t surprised and claimed that once Dublin are prepared to dig deep and get stuck in, they’re a match for anyone.
He said: “This Dublin team needs to get to a certain level of high work rate and then the hurling starts.
“Too many times we have sat back and thought, ‘we have this sorted, we can just go out and play a lovely brand of hurling, like Tipperary would do, flash the ball around’.
“We need to keep things very, very simple and to work really hard and then the hurling takes over and that’s what they did, they didn’t let Galway play. They were all over them, hassling them, every single minute. Galway didn’t get a chance to breathe.”
Keaney stopped short of predicting provincial success but is upbeat.
He said: “If Dublin weren’t wearing Dublin jerseys the last day and, let’s say, Tipperary jerseys instead, everybody would be saying that Tipperary would be up there to win the All-ireland.”