All-Ireland winning Dublin footballer commits to county hurlers

"We'll have Conor McHugh in, who has recently committed to senior hurling with Dublin."

Former Dublin footballer Conor McHugh will be togging out for the inter-county hurlers this year.

The 2014 U-21 Player of the Year played for Jim Gavin's Sky Blues for seven years, making 20 appearances between 2015 and 2021 and winning four All-Irelands, despite being unable to nail down a starting role as a forward.

He has now revitalised his career as a full-back with the All-Ireland-winning Na Fianna hurlers, under the guidance of boss Niall Ó Ceallacháin.

Ó Ceallacháin is now the new Dublin manager and confirmed after Saturday's NHL win over Antrim, that McHugh will be part of the team this season.

While no Na Fianna players played in the 1-25 to 0-14 hammering, after the match the gaffer spoke about the players who will be joining up with the squad.

He said: "The obvious ones with Na Fianna are the Curries (Colin and Seán) and Donal (Burke) but also we will have Brian Ryan and we'll have Conor McHugh in who has recently committed to senior hurling with Dublin.

"So what's happening is that we've been operating off a certain number up to now. Over the next 48 hours, we'll be making a couple of calls around refining a panel down. There have been lads who have been with us over the last two or three months and who have put a huge amount of work in who unfortunately won't be part of things moving forward. That's just the nature of it."

We recently reported on the situation of Ryan, who has switched counties, having won an All-Ireland with Limerick.