Rushe says Dublin hurlers need to regain ferocity

Liam Rushe actually uses the word “depressed”, and presumably not lightly. His melancholy may not make the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, but there has to be some deep psychological trauma after the way Dublin gave up their Leinster hurling title to Kilkenny.

Because after enduring a 52-year famine before winning the 2013 title – taking out Kilkenny along the way too for the first time since 1942 – Dublin showed up in Croke Park on the first Sunday in July, and that was about it: they lost by double scores, didn’t score at all in the last 25 minutes, rounding off a performance manager Anthony Daly claimed “wouldn’t win you a minor match, never mind that”.

No wonder Rushe has been feeling down about it. He was actually one of Dublin’s better players on the day, fronting a defence which at least ensured Kilkenny won a Leinster title without scoring a goal for the first time since 2005. But as painkilling goes, that stat is like being given an aspirin after an amputation.

“Yeah, I was depressed for a few days, alright,” says Rushe. “Wallowing in despair. But we are still in it. I think we need to hold on to that hurt, and definitely use it as motivation.

“Wounded pride, almost. Because we never got going, and feel we let a lot of people down. But maybe that’s what we needed, and lads will switch back on, and realise the ferocity that we need to play with, as a must, as a basic pre-requisite, to winning anything at all.”

That process of switching back on was promptly upgraded to URGENT once Dublin’s quarter-final opponents came into view: Wexford’s re-emergence through the qualifiers (taking out All-Ireland champions Clare) meant Dublin would be paired with Tipperary – that being the second act in Sunday’s double-bill at Semple Stadium.

It’s not just that Tipp will have home advantage, or the fact Dublin haven’t beaten them in the championship since 1917: it’s more the fact that while Dublin slowly disappeared into oblivion against Kilkenny, Tipperary rapidly killed off Galway in their qualifier – trailing by six points, with 20 minutes to go, before out-scoring them 2-10 to 0-1 in the time that remained.

Against that backdrop Rushe and the rest of the Dublin team have had little time to feel sorry for themselves after it all went wrong against Kilkenny. All that matters now is righting those wrongs.

“I wouldn’t say it was a gulf in skill, or class,” says Rushe, when asked to pinpoint their main wrongdoings.

“We just didn’t look tuned in, a bit shell-shocked. And collectively, we forgot how hard-won the title was last year, how hard we fought and battled for it. And that’s the basic element of what we were missing.”

Rushe certainly wasn’t buying into any excuses, such as Danny Sutcliffe being only half-fit as he recovered from a broken bone in his wrist, or Ryan O’Dwyer being only half the player he normally is, having missed several weeks of training through illness.

Daly did replace them both early on, but even still, says Rushe, Dublin were struggling.

“Even we lost those two battles, we still could have won the other 13. So we are all culpable. It’s a 15-man game.

“Looking back, there were a few aimless balls delivered in, and we are the men, out the field, who are supposed to provide that extra run. In fairness to Kilkenny I think the pressure was so relentless on us.

“They came out with the bit between their teeth. Even getting a backward pass to Peter Kelly was difficult at times. Just working the ball out fell apart after a while. So we resorted to longer balls, and it didn’t work.”

That much was obvious. By packing their own defence, Dublin allowed Kilkenny players like Jackie Tyrrell to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee; and opting to send ball into Dublin forwards who wouldn’t be the tallest men in the game allowed for big men like Brian Hogan, JJ Delaney and Tyrrell to win ball almost for fun.

“Well, we went with set-ups that worked for us in the league, and previous years. So I don’t think it was the formation. I just think we looked uncomfortable on the ball.

“We drew lads out of midfield, which we’ve done in the past, and we kept Kilkenny goal-less. If you said that to me, before the match, I’d have said we’ll win. But they beat us on points.

“So I don’t think it was the formation. It was our execution, because when you do turn over the ball, you have to make good use of it out the field, and we didn’t. And when the ball started going in, it was coming right back out. The quicker it came out, the quicker we launched it in, so it was really our own execution further out the field that cost us.

“In that way we played into their hands. But that wasn’t the original plan. It went out the window because we executed it so poorly. We’re all to blame.”

There is mixed news on Dublin’s injury front for Sunday, with Niall McMorrow (knee) and Paul Schutte (back) unlikely to feature, although Mark Schutte could be back in contention, after recovering from a dislocated shoulder.