Dual players may be few and far between.
At club level, there are plenty of them but when representing your county they just don’t exist.
There are exceptions, Keith Higgins plays for the Mayo hurlers, it’s more manageable for him because the Christy Ring final is at the start of June when the footballers are only starting off their championship season.
Then there is Rena Buckley from Cork, she has amassed a not so shabby 18 All-Ireland medals between camogie and football but, by and large, you don’t see many high profile dual players.
There are plenty of lads that are undoubtedly talented enough to play both, with Pat Gilroy’s appointment there have been rumours he might try and get the likes of Mark Schutte, Diarmuid Connolly, and Ciaran Kilkenny into the hurling squad but the new manager has dismissed the notion saying that he hopes to continue his good relationship with Jim Gavin and the football team.
“I put a lot of time and effort into my little contribution to Dublin football and I’m not going to do anything to damage that either,” Gilroy said.
“I want to see them being successful.
“It’s one of the things I suppose, we’re both Dublin teams, you know, and we should be working together. We’re both for the same cause. I’d have a very good relationship with Jim and I don’t see that changing.”
“It would take a lot of things to fall into place,” O’Donnell said.
“First of all, it would take a very special player to be able to play intercounty hurling and be able to train half the time as someone else and keep his position and then vice versa with the football he needs to be that good that he can keep his place on the football team already with so much competition there.
“It takes a lot of communication between managers between training and matches and even logistically I don’t know if it’s possible, I don’t know if we would have a game the same day as the footballers.
“I can’t see it happening, maybe in the future if there is an exceptional player and there was a good system around him and even then I don’t know if he’d be able to play every game and then there’s the whole thing if he misses a game and there’s someone playing well why not stick with the fella playing well in the first place.
“It brings up a lot of questions so it might be easier to just stick with what you have. I don’t see it happening in Dublin over the next couple of years.”
Eoghan O’Donnell was in Holy Spirit BNS in Ballymun today at an AIG Heroes event. The AIG Heroes initiative is a programme that leverages AIG’s sporting sponsorships to help provide positive role models and build confidence for young people in local communities.
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