DUBLIN HURLING:THE FIRST line of the following quote by Dublin hurling manager Anthony Daly is high praise indeed for injured young defenders Tomás Brady and Joey Boland.

“Look it, I was lucky enough to play on a team with (Brian) Lohan at fullback and (Seánie) McMahon at centre back and, you know, they were pillars. The boys mightn’t be at that standard yet, and hopefully they will be, but it is a huge hole out of your team, three and six, so we would absolutely love to have them back.”

With Galway, presuming they overcome Westmeath this weekend, up next on Saturday, June 18th, in Tullamore, the focus has immediately shifted on from Sunday’s worrying four-point dismissal of Offaly at a sparsely attended Croke Park – achieved without the two aforementioned central components of the Dublin defence.

Brady’s knee is expected to be adequately functioning in three weeks’ time but Boland’s shoulder problem is more concerning.

“Tomás was training last week, running and stuff, and was looking good. With the best will in the world until he plays an odd game we won’t know for sure but the knee will probably be okay.

“For Joey it is a race against time and we won’t know really until the last minute. He is off the sling and back with the team but his will be a tighter call.

“If they’re not right there is no point playing a fella who is injured. I suppose Offaly were probably forced to play Brian Carroll when Rory Hanniffy was missing but he obviously wasn’t fit and they had to take him off (after 11 minutes), which is a bit of a dampener.”

Sunday’s ropy victory has at least exorcised the trauma of last summer’s collapse against Antrim when a six-point lead was squandered. Daly admitted that dark memory crossed his mind as Offaly started rattling off scores late on.

“It wasn’t a nice experience to go through. Scary enough on the line, I can tell you. But, having said that, it might have been no harm to get us grounded. There was a certain hype after the league; fellas patting fellas on the back and telling them they are great.

“Championship is championship, though. We got a fair grounding yesterday. Yes, we won the match by four points but I never saw as many people giving out about beating Offaly in the championship. Look, we have made a bit of progress, and that is a measure there of that but that performance wouldn’t do against Galway.”

That people are giving out about a four-point victory over Offaly shows the rapid rise in standards and public expectation, particularly since Dublin captured the national league. “There is no doubt you can see the progress. The first game against Kilkenny in Parnell Park in early ’09 it was 6-20 to 13 or 14 points. That day to this day there has been a good bit of progress. We are just trying to get the younger lads to mature bit by bit. That’s what it is all about.

“The league was a great experience but we are in championship now. There is no great difference in the speed of the hurling but there is always a difference in intensity and we had to find that out the hard way against Offaly. Hopefully we can learn that lesson.”

Galway gave All-Ireland champions Tipperary their sternest challenge last season and, as usual, they have only one achievement in their collective mindset.

“Every year for Galway it is the All-Ireland. It hasn’t come their way since ’88. They are waiting to make the breakthrough; they have had all the underage success. They are a very good team, especially on their day – we saw that against Tipp last year. They really performed and were really unlucky.

“We are underdogs going in obviously but we look forward to the chance now,” Daly added.

Making the call Referees stay out of Hawk-Eye debate

REFEREES’ chief Mick Curley has said that while it’s clear Alan McCrabbe’s early point for Dublin against Offaly on Sunday should have been signalled wide, match officials would not be getting involved in the debate whether Hawk-Eye technology should be used.

“We would accept it was wrongly flagged. The ball was wide and it was a wrong call,” said Curley, who is chairman of the National Referees Committee.

“We just implement the rules, we do not try to influence rules or changes. That is up to management at Croke Park and it is not for referees to start influencing rule changes.”