O'Carroll to miss Dublin's 2011 league campaign

Rory O’Carroll has confirmed that he will miss Dublin’s entire 2011 Allianz GAA Football National League campaign.

O’Carroll, 21, is spending the college year teaching English in France as part of his studies in UCD and will not return to the country until next May.

He admits that he will now face a massive task to win back a place in the Dublin team for next year’s Championship having established himself as first-choice full-back this year.

“If I come back in early May if I’m allowed rejoin the panel I will have a huge amount of work to do fitness-wise and football-wise,” he said.

“I’ll have missed the whole pre-season basically so I will have a lot of work to do to get back to it but we will see what happens then, I haven’t thought too much about it to be honest.

“I do it in college and I have to go. I knew that when I picked French in first year.”

The Kilmacud Crokes man has informed Dublin boss Pat Gilroy of his decision and says he will not be travelling back to Ireland to play in league games.

“I told him and he has no problems with it. He knew I did French in college so he had no problems with it.

“I said I would talk to him when I got back and that was it really.”