Liam Rushe
thought that after six years his days of positional experimentation were over, having played everywhere from corner-forward back to midfield it seemed that in recent years he had at last found his home at centre-back.
He thought nothing of it then when new manager Ger Cunningham handed him a bib and asked him to line out at full forward for the sake of a training drill late last year, or even when he was named to play in the same position during the Walsh Cup at the dawn of the new one.
Different plans
Yet going into round two of the
Allianz League
, with no sign of that 14 being exchanged for a number six jersey any time soon the 24-year-old is beginning to see that his new boss has different plans for him than the last did.
“He’s the manager. He threw me in there in training one day and said we’d try it and have a look. That’s pretty much the same line I got come Walsh Cup and come league. We’ll try it and if it’s a winning formula, I’m happy enough.
“I always said I like centre-back, that’s where I like to play, but full-forward is great craic once the ball is coming in.”
Dublin started of the league with a 2-20 to 0-14 win against Tipperary. Despite 2-14 in all from the starting six forwards in that encounter, up until Rushe's last minute goal he had mustered only a point in a hot and cold individual showing.
“It was probably borne of frustration really. I got a clean hand on three or four balls and they all slipped out of my grasp. I think once I saw half a chance, I was going straight for goal no matter what.”
Intercounty debut
Rushe made his intercounty debut playing in the full-forward line and, while not entirely content in returning to the position, he does so with six years of intercounty experience behind him, as well as some first-hand experience of the movement and technique of some of the game’s most clinical forwards.
“It’s a bit more comfortable. Certainly I have a lot more experience of marking top-class forwards so basically trying to emulate what I’ve seen from the trickiest people I’ve come up against.”
He'll have to be at his sharpest this weekend though with a trip to All-Ireland champions Kilkenny.
“We’re looking forward to it. I think there was a lot of talk in the media about Kilkenny being at half mast for the league with so many lads retired and injured but I think they showed they weren’t [beating Cork]. There’s such competition in that panel, I think a few people picked them up at great odds for this year.”
