Liam Dunne's believes Oulart-The Ballagh's absence from Sunday's Wexford SHC final is "good for hurling in the county".

This may seem strange coming from one of the club's most famous sons, but wearing his Wexford manager's hat, Dunne can see the benefits of having two new teams - St. Anne's and Shelmaliers - involved in the showpiece game after years of Oulart dominance.

"It's fantastic if you're not from Oulart or The Ballagh!" he jokingly remarked in The Irish Times.

"But from my point of view I can see the advantage of the stranglehold being loosened a bit and that bit of freshness that new teams can bring to the championship. It's great for my job that clubs can see light at the end of the tunnel. It can only be good for hurling in the county.

"Oulart raised the bar over the years - there's no doubt about that - and I don't think that they're a spent force or anything like it but it was bound to catch up with them. Still I won't be surprised if they bounce back next year. But the standard has definitely evened off. You've got two new teams now."

Wexford enjoyed their best championship campaign in years this summer, taking the scalp of reigning All-Ireland champions Clare along the way, but Dunne still rues the fact that their games were condensed into such a tight schedule, which eventually led to a heavy All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Limerick.

"We could have beaten Clare in Ennis but in a way I'm glad we didn't because we wouldn't have had that night in Wexford Park. But we'd 22 days to play four games, two with extra time, plus a Leinster U21 final in the middle of it all," he continues.

"I think at a time when there's so much talk about player welfare that sort of schedule needs to be looked at. I know we drew the Clare games but there should be a little bit of flexibility instead of the fixtures being set in stone.

"It was most pleasing for me that we managed to get down from the Clare game and back up to beat Waterford a week later but we'd nothing left by the time we played Limerick.

"That's not dismissing Limerick who are a very good team, as they showed against Kilkenny, and beat us by 24 points - an definitely deserved to beat us by 23!"

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