THERE’S GOOD NEWS on the injury front for the Waterford hurlers ahead of their All-Ireland semi-final with Kilkenny on Sunday 9 August.
Corner-back Noel Connors limped off with a dead leg against Dublin in the first-half of last Sunday’s quarter-final in Thurles.
But it is hoped that Connors will be fit for selection for the team that will take on the Cats.
“It looks like it’s going to clear up,” revealed manager Derek McGrath last night.
“He hasn’t trained properly yet, he did a light bit of running Thursday night and we’re training again Friday evening so we’re hopeful he’ll do something.
“He won’t be in contact until next Tuesday, if you like, but we’re very optimistic that he’ll be ready.”
Connors has been receiving cryotherapy treatment since the Dublin game.
“He was down a couple of times and obviously he’s been looked after by our own physio team but he’s making a good recovery, I have to say,” outlined McGrath.
“He tried to run it off initially but the feeling with a dead leg is that if you keep moving, normally you’d be able to run it off.
“But it was a fairly severe one and he was struggling to sprint and if he couldn’t sprint, there was no place for him.
“So he put his own hand up. Basically he had to come off, but we’ll be very hopeful.”
Apart from long-term injury victim Pauric Mahony, Waterford have a full squad to pick from.
“We seem to be clear so far,” said McGrath.
“We haven’t played a competitive match among ourselves, we had one last night and probably a bit of one on Tuesday.
“That would be the only area where you’d be likely to pick up injuries, barring a freak occurrence.
“Up until those games are concluded on Tuesday night, we should hopefully be free of injury and it’s fairly competitive now to get into the 26 let alone get into the 15.
“That’s where we are in terms of injuries so we can’t play any injury card at all.”
