WATERFORD ATTACKER MAURICE Shanahan has played down the incident in last month’s All-Ireland quarter-final which saw Dublin’s Liam Rushe sent-off for striking the Deise player.
Shanahan has described the incident as simply a ‘rush of blood’ from Rushe and insists the Dublin defender is ‘not a dirty hurler’.
“Look, myself and Liam had a good old battle, we had a few words. If Waterford were losing by five points and our championship was slipping away, could I guarantee I wouldn’t have done the same thing? No I can’t.
“I’ve no problem with Liam, none at all, he’s a fantastic hurler. I’m not a dirty hurler, but I play off the cuff, I might say things, but I don’t go over the line.
“I’ll show my emotions on the field. It doesn’t bother me, the people who were criticising me in recent weeks probably did much worse themselves on the field of play.
“It was just a rush of blood from Liam, he’s not a dirty hurler either. I don’t want my year to be remembered for that, it wasn’t in my head to get him sent off.”
After the satisfaction of that victory over Dublin, today Waterford head for a collision with Kilkenny with an All-Ireland final place at stake.
Waterford enter the game in a positive mood after bouncing back from their Munster final loss to Tipperary by seeing off Dublin.
“Everyone of us made a pledge in the dressing-room that we would go out the next day and cut out the mistakes we had made,” outlined Shanahan.
“We made mistakes against Dublin too, but they are not always noticed when you win. But Derek McGrath did show us where we went wrong.
“We’ve done a lot of gym work this year, it has been the first year, we have really gone at the gym and it is paying dividends, you can see it in us.
We had played Dublin in a challenge match just after the Munster semi-final and they bullied us physically, they pushed us around the place one night in Nowlan Park.
“But we didn’t let it happen in Thurles a fortnight ago. We knew what Dublin were going to bring to us in the quarter-final, but we decided it was about time we brought it to them. Now it steps up again against Kilkenny.”
