Dubs’ Ryan unfazed by double talk

There are still two counties left in both the All-Ireland senior hurling and football championships but such has been the luck of the draw, Cork and Dublin have ended up facing each other on successive Sundays in Croke Park.

First up are the footballers on Saturday and one of those in attendance with more than a passing interest will be Paul Ryan, ace Dublin hurling forward and free-taker. “I love watching the football. I won’t go to the Hill, probably the Hogan. I know Mick MacAuley very well, I know a lot of the other lads as well. I hope they do it, I really do. I think they’re a really great team and if we could replicate what they did two years ago, it would be great.”

Should they do it — and they are favourites — will that then add to the pressure on the hurlers on the following Sunday to keep the ‘Dublin Double’ on track? “Not really, we’ve kind of kept to ourselves and we know to keep away from all that because last year we started to pay attention to it and look what happened, we got relegated. So it would be stupid. We’ve no right to talk about an All-Ireland yet, we’re talking about the semi-finals and that’s as far as we’ve been going.”