Conor McKeon

Clubs do not play that sort of hurling.

They are still wedded to a style of hurling that is considered to be much more traditional and sort of an ode to the glory days.

So I think it's a bit of an uncomfortable fit just culturally for the Kilkenny senior hurling team.

And when you're doing it without a massive squad of really talented players, what you have is a season like this.

Yeah, no, it's like I wouldn't ever say that having a Dublin man managing the Dublin hurlers is essential because Anthony Daly was proof as to what somebody can bring to that sort of top end of it, you know, where you need experience at the inter-county scene.

But I think it is preferable, like whereby there's a viable candidate.

And like the thing about Neil O'Callaghan is when he was appointed, he was on nobody's shortlist.

People had not conjured him.

It was before Nafina had even won a Dublin championship.

And I think the people who appointed him breathed a big sigh of relief when the Fianna went on and won in All-Ireland because all of a sudden he looked like a very obvious candidate.

His entire backroom other than Nigel O'Hara, who's from Kilkenny, the coach who was involved in Kildare before, are dubs as well.

You've David Curtin and Donald McGovern from Kilkenny.

So it is a very...

Dublin sort of hurling team but look I suppose the conversation about Dublin hurling tends to be quite vague you know people talk about Dublin hurling is this a good day for Dublin hurling and sometimes you just have to separate the wider entity of Dublin hurling from the Dublin senior hurling team Dublin hurling goes on it exists they produce good underage teams there's high participation rates it's strong in areas that it didn't used to be strong they produce strong clubs teams and

But the Dublin senior hurling team has been underperforming for a long period of time.

The two, they are in some ways connected, but they're also independent entities.

And there is enough hurling going on in Dublin and there's enough talent that Dublin should have been at a much higher level than they have been for the last 13 years.

but Neil O'Callaghan like he's obviously somebody who's there for the right reasons he's obviously somebody who understands the kind of nuances of management because whatever Neil says there was a huge day yesterday for Dublin there's a huge symbolism to beating Kilkenny it's massive it doesn't happen very often and I had to enjoy it but it wasn't long before he was getting his head around the next day which is what you have to do

And like he mentioned them afterwards, there's players there like Chris Crummey, Donald Bourke, Paddy Smith.

They've been around Dublin for a long, long time and they've never beaten Kilkenny.