CORK BOSS JOHN Cleary has revealed they have six key injury absentees ahead of the start of their Division 2 football league campaign this weekend.
Conor Corbett will miss the league as he continues to recover from a cruciate injury sustained last summer, while Cleary has confirmed defenders Luke Fahy, Kevin O’Donovan, and Sean Meehan will all be absent for the league as well.
In addition, Cork must plan without Ian Maguire and David Buckley for the start of their Division 2 fixtures that see them host Meath next Saturday in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, before a trip to Páirc Esler in Newry to take on Down on Sunday 2 February.
“Luke Fahy got injured in a club match for Ballincollig, against the Barrs (Cork quarter-final), and had an operation on his hamstring,” outlined Cleary.
“Kevin O’Donovan (ankle) was carrying it all last year, even in the county final he was half injured. He had an operation too and is recovering. Both gone for the full league. For Luke and Kevin, their return to play date is around April which, Munster championship is the first weekend of April, so it may be after that.
“Sean Meehan got injured there the week before last so he is out for the League (hamstring). Ian Maguire has a quad injury coming back from the club season and needs to take care of it. David Buckley picked up a hamstring injury with MTU Cork last week. Tommy Walsh is just about back now and he has been training, so he’s in the frame for the weekend.”
Cork’s squad underwent significant turnover in the off-season with eight players departing for reasons ranging from retirement and travel, to opting out for the year.
“It was always going to be a probability that the older fellas would look at it, for different reasons,” stated Cleary.
“Killian O’Hanlon, he is facing an operation. Tom Clancy, he had family circumstances. John O’Rourke, more or less the same. It kind of came upon us before even we had got back together and seen where we were going. Other fellas then for different reasons.
“Some of it would have been disappointing, but others, they make their decision, and I’ve been talking to other inter-county managers and they’ve been in the same boat. You just move on and it is next man up. That is what we have been doing. Other fellas will now be given a chance in the league and we’ll see if they are up to it. You’ve no other choice.”
Cleary elaborated further on the decision of St Finbarr’s forward Steven Sherlock, who was regularly involved in games in recent seasons, but has now departed the squad.
“The conversation was quite simple, he had flagged very early after the championship had finished that it was his plan to take a year out. Simple as.
“There was no other complications, never said anything to me about anything else other than he felt he wanted a year out, full stop.”
Castlehaven attacker Jack Cahalane has now linked up with the county’s hurling squad.
“Again, he just said he wasn’t committing for the year. We had a couple of conversations and he said he couldn’t commit. That was it.
We’ve kind of known about this for the past eight or nine weeks, so while we’ve been doing our training and in-house matches, other guys have been there. We still have 14 of the 15 that beat Donegal available, we still have 20 of the 26 that togged out that day. It is not that the guts were torn completely out of the squad.
“Sean McDonnell from Mallow, Sean Walsh from Mitchelstown, Éanna O’Hanlon, Sean Brady, Eanna Desmond, David Buckley (Douglas). Those types of players have been in the squad and training with the team for the past few weeks.”
Need to start playing the games in Páirc uí Rinn unless the Cork public get behind them. The atmosphere will be better & they’ll be harder to beat as a result.
Well, perfect opportunity for others to shine. God knows we need it