TIPPERARY STAR SEAMUS Callanan has confirmed that he is set to miss the county’s first two games in next month’s Munster senior hurling championship.
Callanan broke a bone in his hand in a Friday evening training session earlier this month, in the week after his first start of the year when Tipperary took on Dublin.
Tipperary travel to Walsh Park to face Waterford on 17 April and then face Clare in Thurles on 24 April.
The 2019 All-Ireland winning captain admits ‘it’s not looking good’ for him to make a recovery in order to line out in those matches.
“Unfortunately I’d say the first few rounds are probably out for me. It’s broke, so there’s not a lot I can do, only try and keep fit at the minute. It’s just going to last as long as it lasts really. There’s couple of wires in it there, so it just needs to, they need to be in it for a six-week period and then hopefully get back at it. So at the moment it’s just running and trying to keep as ready as I can be.
“I won’t know much more until I’m meeting the specialist again next Monday. I can’t see it being a case of them being able to take out the wires early but at the moment it’s not looking good for the first two games. Look let’s see, I’ll keep my body ready anyway and hopefully be fit to contribute at some stage.”
Callanan, speaking today in Croke Park at the launch of the oneills.com’s sponsorship of the U20 hurling championship, could feature for Tipperary’s last two round-robin games when they are away to Limerick on 8 May and at home to Cork on 22 May.
He has had significant back injury problems in the past but had treated that issue with new manager Colm Bonnar not rushing him back at the start of this season.
“Ideally you want a full run of fitness and you want to get your hard work in through the pre-season and all that. To be fair my back has been holding up well. Colm gave me an extra bit of time over the winter to concentrate on really having that so that came back really well. Just needed a bit of gametime throughout the league, which unfortunately I haven’t been able to get now.
“But look all I can do is concentrate on what I can control really at the moment. It’s sport, it’s contact sport, injuries happen. I suppose in the broader scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse.”
Tipperary’s league campaign concluded last Sunday with a win over Antrim and after failing to reach the knockout stages, their concentration is now on the championship opener with Waterford.
“I think if you were to get to a league final, it’s very, very close to championship,” said Callanan.
“I wouldn’t say it’s suiting us or anything like that but it’s the situation we’re in now and we have to deal with that. Look we’ve a number of weeks now to just concentrate on ourselves, just work hard as a group for a few weeks and then your week before championship, where you just tailor things. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of internal matches. I suppose we learned a lot from the league. Some players showed great form through the league, so I think it was very useful.”
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