Dublin manager Ger Cunningham admits he was taken by surprise at Ross O'Carroll's decision to leave the county hurling panel and concentrate on lining out for his club Kilmacud Crokes.
“Ross pulled from the panel there a couple of weeks ago. He wants to put his attention on club hurling and football," Cunningham told RTÉ Sport.
"We got very little indication that he was thinking that way. But he is very focused on club. I was talking to fellas afterwards and it means a lot to him.
"He has been on and off with a couple of injuries. Nothing major. Just niggling injuries. I think there is club football in Dublin on 6 June, it’s knock-out and he said he wanted to focus on that.
“It's disappointing. He has been there since the start of the year. The door is always open but at that stage, if you’re pulling out at this time of the year, I would imagine that’s the decision made for this year anyway."
Dublin have been dealt a further blow with the news that midfielder Niall McMorrow will undergo thumb surgery and is set for two months on the sidelines.
"It was just an injury to the tendon that holds the thumb in place," said Cunningham. "He’s going in to see the specialist this morning but he has been ruled out for the next couple of weeks at least.
“It's disappointing. He has been there since the start of the year"
“Since the Galway game in the league, he has settled in really well. He played very well against Limerick and he played very well against Cork. He really put his hand up for a position so it’s disappointing for the player himself.
"He’s really disappointed that he’s missing out for the next couple of matches but hopefully his season won’t be over. Hopefully he’ll be back.”
Cunningham's side face Galway in a Leinster SHC quarter-final on Sunday week and they will be keen to atone from throwing away a 10-point lead in their Allianz Hurling League semi-final defeat to Cork.
"I think for 50 minutes, we did play really good hurling," said Cunningham. "But there is a lesson learned that when we get into those situations, that we need to be closing them out.
“Cork were always going to come at us. We had nine or ten chances, nine or ten wides in the second half. Maybe if we had got them, maybe we would have stopped Cork’s momentum.
"It was our decision-making. We had some bad wides. A couple of frees that we didn’t get. That day we didn’t get any advantage and a couple of points would have stopped Cork’s momentum."
Despite that setback, Cunningham was happy with Dublin winning four of their seven outings under his new management team.
“You’d like to win all the games but you have to be consistent and get good performances," he said.
"The league was good for us. We got the chance to see some players and for us to get to know them. I think overall, the league was very positive."
