He acknowledges the frustration. For a start, Ronan Hayes and his Kilmacud team-mates were late into Dublin training under new manager Micheál Donoghue because of the club’s run to the Leinster final last December.
Then, as the league got under way, Hayes was sent on at half-time in the first match against Waterford to replace the injured Cian O’Sullivan at full forward.
“I was unfortunate enough that within four minutes I picked up a hamstring injury,” he said at the launch of AIG’s 10th year sponsoring Dublin GAA.
“I am out of action for the next couple of weeks. I started out on a rehab programme and we have the resources there to hopefully get me back on the pitch as soon as possible.”
Donoghue has been running the team with an emphasis on new players, partly necessitated by the number unavailable to him for this season, including experienced trio Cian O’Callaghan, Liam Rushe and Chris Crummey.
Hayes says it’s disappointing to lose hurlers of that calibre.
“But you also respect the fact that there is other stuff outside of hurling and they have other goals that they want to achieve, experiences that they want to have in life, so you respect their decision to step away and you would never begrudge them it.
“It’s definitely difficult losing some key players as well. They weren’t fringe players or lads who weren’t heavily involved. These were key players for us for the last number of years.”
Dublin are in familiar in-between territory. Last year they got tipped out of contention in the Leinster round robin on the last day, getting overtaken by Wexford’s unexpected defeat of Kilkenny.
In the league, they head to Nowlan Park on Sunday, a point behind the home team, and hoping to leapfrog them into third place in Division 1B but Hayes isn’t sure whether he’ll see any game time in the current campaign and is focusing on championship.
Team captain Eoghan O’Donnell has expressed a personal preference for playing home matches in Croke Park rather than Parnell Park and Hayes is inclined to agree with him.
“From a personal point of view I’d prefer a nice big open pitch as a forward. You want to have as much space as possible. You want to be able to run your man over and back from sideline to sideline. As a team, I personally think it would suit us more.”
Might it be worth their while making an approach to the authorities about this preference?
“Hard to know. It is probably above my pay grade.”
He says that the team’s goal scoring has been discussed and needs to be addressed. One goal in the entirety of last year’s championship has been followed by a league campaign that has been goalless in two of the three fixtures.
There is though a tactical aspect to the dearth.
“If the opposition are going to play a sweeper. If they are going to pack the back, you have to be able to score from distance like Limerick do. Or if they are going to offer up one on ones or two on twos inside, then you have to have a goal threat there.
“I think that with the personnel we have that we can play that game of cat and mouse. We have players that are well capable of taking their own score from distance or working a shot from a scoring zone.
“But then I also think we have lads inside, who if you give them a chance, a sniff at goal, it’s going to be in the back of the net. I think it definitely has changed. The days of having a big full forward standing on the square are gone.”
