Consistency the name of the game for Dubs, says Rushe

CONSISTENCY, that’s got to be the name of the game for Dublin for the rest of this year says Liam Rushe, one of several star young players introduced by manager Anthony Daly last year.

It certainly wasn’t there in the early part of the league, when Dublin opened with a massive 13-point loss against Waterford, followed it up with a spectacular nine-point win over Tipperary, then the biggest disappointment of all, a seven-point bubble-buster against an Offaly team they expected to beat.

And therein lay Dublin’s problem – expectation led to complacency, they weren’t ready for what a fired-up Offaly threw at them, and thereafter they were in a battle for survival in the top division and only secured their status with a thumping of depleted Limerick in the final round.

It all went back to that Offaly defeat, however, when Dublin strolled into Tullamore thinking that their credentials as genuine contenders at the top level meant that they could approach certain games with a cavalier attitude.

Not any more, says Liam Rushe, point made, as the Dubs now prepare to take on Laois this Sunday in Nowlan Park in the Leinster championship quarter-final.

“I think we’ve learned that at this level you have to prepare for every game like you are playing Kilkenny or Tipperary. Everyone is so close, you have to go out and perform and if you don’t you will lose, that’s the bottom line. We figured out that we needed to tighten up, and I think we did for the last few games.”

That they did, and Dublin went on to run Kilkenny, Cork and Galway close in their next three games, before demolishing Limerick. It was progress, definitely, on what had gone on earlier in the season, but have they progressed from last year, when, after a very strong league, a first Leinster final appearance in over a decade which resulted in honourable defeat against Kilkenny, they were flagged as a team to be watched? Add in another huge defeat since the end of the league, in a challenge against Tipperary, and it’s been a rocky few months for Dublin, hasn’t it?

“Yeah,” he agrees, “but I wouldn’t say it’s second season syndrome or anything like that. All of our young players are used to competing with and beating these top teams so I think there will be a few surprises in us this year.”

He’s a superb find, is Liam Rushe, young but full-grown, a hurler for the present as much as for the future. He’s a dual star too with his club, St Patrick’s, he could just as easily be lining out now with the Dublin footballers but, like a few other dual stars in recent years, he has opted for hurling.

“I just always preferred hurling,” he says, by way of explanation. “I was probably as good at football. As I was developing a lot of people around me were all hurling people – my Dad and primary school teacher were always more hurling, the people that were coaching me had more of an interest in it.

“When I was U15 I got called for the hurling and that was it really. Hurling is a better game in my opinion, though some people would argue over that. But, as a manager once told me, hurling is for artists and football is for artisans – he also told me football is for people with no imagination!”

That manager wouldn’t be Anthony Daly, by any chance, former inspirational Clare captain and Liam’s current boss with Dublin? Certainly Daly would have been one of those influencing Rushe in his decision, and the respect he has for his manager is immediately obvious.

“He’s charismatic and inspirational,” says Rushe. “He led Clare to two All-Irelands and maybe he should have had a few more. He really is the man for our present situation – there are serious parallels to be drawn between Dublin and Clare, because they came from nowhere to win it too.”

To win it ‘too’ – did you note that?

There’s ambition in this guy, major ambition, but – Dublin need to be careful this Sunday, very careful.