I wouldn’t go behind Jim’s back
GILROY NOT PLANNING RAID ON GAVIN’S DUBS
NEW Dublin hurling boss Pat Gilroy insists he won’t try to raid the successful football panel for fresh talent. Diarmuid Connolly, a club mate and close ally of Gilroy’s, is among several members of Dublin’s three-in-a-row winning football panel that are also talented hurlers. Connolly will compete for St Vincent’s in the Dublin hurling semi-finals this weekend while Con O’callaghan, another football star, is the reigning Leinster club Hurler of the Year. Ciaran Kilkenny, Eric Lowndes, Cormac Costello and Mark Schutte are all talented hurlers too though Gilroy said he isn’t planning to strip Jim Gavin’s football setup of its best dual players. Gilroy said: “I have a very good relationship with Jim Gavin, I have a very good relationship with football, I don’t intend to mess up football by doing something like trying to negotiate guys into doing something that maybe they don’t even want to do. “We have two Dublin teams; one plays hurling, one plays football, the relationship should be a good relationship. “I won’t be going talking to anyone behind Jim’s back or anything like that. There might be guys at the end of his panel that he’s looking to move on, and they might be interested in hurling. “But I only want guys who really want to play hurling. I’m open to a dual guy, if some fella can miraculously do it when you produce the fixture list but really I just want people who really, really want to play for Dublin. They can come from anywhere as far as I’m concerned.” Dublin chairman Sean Shanley said before Gilroy’s appointment that they’d like any new manager to coax back players like Danny Sutcliffe who declined to play for former manager Ger Cunningham. Gilroy said: “For me, it’s very simple – if a guy is playing for his club and he’s playing well, that’s good enough. I was away for three years. I’m lucky, I have a blank sheet of paper and the history for me doesn’t matter.” Dublin won just two of their nine league and Championship games this year so Gilroy isn’t setting any bars for 2018. Gilroy said: “I have a simple plan – if you can make sure that, each year, your best performance is your last one, then that’s a good target. If Dublin were getting the best out of themselves in the last performance of the year, then we’d be in semi-finals and finals more regularly.”