Sutcliffe gets nod for Boston trip as Gilroy firms up his Dublin ticket
DANNY SUTCLIFFE has been named in Pat Gilroy’s first Dublin hurling squad which is bound for Boston for the Super 11s in Fenway Park this weekend.
Sutcliffe has not played for Dublin for the last two years and was involved with New York in last season’s Connacht football championship defeat to Sligo.
But he has committed to Gilroy’s new regime and, with Niall McMorrow, is among the most experienced players making the trip. Gilroy has held a number of trials, similar to what he did with the footballers in 2009, and his squad is predominantly shaped around this.
He has also confirmed that former Galway manager Anthony Cunningham (below) will be part of his backroom team along with Mickey Whelan and Paddy O’Donoghue. Whelan and O’Donoghue were his selectors when Dublin won the All-Ireland football title in 2011.
Whelan has extensive hurling coaching experience with his club St Vincent’s but Cunningham can expect to be prominent in some of the more technical aspects of the game.
The Dublin squad bound for the Fenway Super 11s hurling classic is: Jonathon Tracey, Paul Winters, Eanna Boland, Paul Crummey, Paddy Smyth, Shane Barrett, Stephen O’Connor, James Madden, Kevin Hetherton, Cian MacGabhann, Stephen Chester, Dónal Gormley, Glenn Whelan, Ronan Hayes, Danny Sutcliffe, John Hetherton, Fergal Whitely, Cillian Costello, Tom Connolly, Darren Kelly, Cian MacGabhann, Emmet McKenna, Donal Burke, Darragh Gray, Alan Moore, Niall McMorrow.
Meanwhile, Galway are set to lose their first ever-player to AFL with confirmation that Cillian McDaid is to join Carlton.
McDaid, a member of the county’s U-21 team which lost to Dublin in this year’s All-Ireland football final, has been on the AFL horizon for the last two years, having attended the international draft combine in Florida in 2015.
Carlton have been progressive in their pursuit of Irish players in the past with Setanta and Aisake Ó hAilpín, Ciarán Sheehan, Zach Tuohy and Ciarán Byrne all featuring for them in the past. Sheehan was recently released by the club.