TIPPERARY FACE AN anxious wait before they discover the nature of the injury that forced Michael Quinlivan off during the first-half of today’s Munster semi-final.
Quinlivan damanged ankle ligaments in the defeat to Cork and manager Liam Kearns revealed afterwards that they must wait before finding out how long he will be sidelined for as they get set for the qualifiers.
“I don’t know. It’s bad ankle ligaments and until we appraise it we won’t know.
“We were afraid it was a broken ankle so thanks be to God, it doesn’t like a broken ankle. He’s out for a number of weeks anyway, we don’t know if he’ll make it for the qualifiers or not.”
Kearns pinpointed the loss of the 2016 All-Star as a key factor in Tipperary being overturned after they had been in front of Cork by five points early in the second half.
“It’s a huge blow because he was only just starting to get into the game. In the second half when we would have been hitting him or kickouts, they wouldn’t have been pushing up on our sweeper I would imagine, if Mikey was still on the field. It was a huge swing in the game really.”
Tipperary also lost defender Shane O’Connell to injury during the game while Jack Kennedy, Ciaran McDonald and Philip Austin were unavailable tonight due to injury, and goalkeeper Evan Comerford missed out due to suspension.
“Shane O’Connell, it was his foot again, he’s very unlucky,” said Kearns.
“He had problems with his foot last year and I’d say that’s probably put him out for a while as well. He had a broken foot.
“We are like a small hospital at this stage, that’s just the way it goes.”
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