Cork manager Pat Ryan confirms injury blow for Declan Dalton

Cork’s Declan Dalton is set for a spell on the sidelines after manager Pat Ryan confirmed that the attacker fractured a metatarsal in Sunday’s Co-op SuperStores Hurling League win over Clare.

The Fr O’Neills man was introduced at half-time at Páirc Uí Rinn but was forced off the field after just seven minutes of the second half.

“Declan Dalton came off,” Ryan said, “I’d say it is a metatarsal injury. It’s disappointing – Deccie had a metatarsal at the end of the year from the club as well on the opposite foot.

“He’s obviously a big, strong man so it’s disappointing. We’ll get that assessed tomorrow.”

Cork’s 1-24 to 0-24 win set up a winner-take-all tie against Limerick on Wednesday night to determine who tops Group A and advances to next Sunday’s final against Waterford.

“There were some positives and negatives,” Ryan said, “we gave a lot of fellas game-time and we’re just delighted for the game, really.

“The subs that came on gave us a lot of impetus as well.

We created an awful lot of opportunities but our shooting was off – making taking the wrong decision at times, not taking the ball on, shooting off the back foot.

“We’d be disappointed with that side of things but there’s plenty to work on over the next couple of weeks.

“We’ve Limerick on Wednesday night and we’ll be facing into the league then after that.”

The tally of 22 wides was certainly one of the areas to be marked down for improvement. Ryan felt that the factors leading up to many of the shots were as important as the scoring attempts themselves.

“It’s something to be sorted,” he said.

“We were shooting off the back foot an awful lot and not taking the right opportunities.

“You don’t mind missing some wides. Robbie [Cotter] went through and had a bad wide but he was taking the right shot – he was straight through and it was just inaccuracy. We’re looking for right decisions all the time, not the wrong decisions.”

Newcomers Bríon Saunderson, Cathal McCarthy, Eoin Carey and Robbie Cotter were all bright spots, as was the return of Robbie Cotter.

Thankfully, the overall injury situation is a positive one.

“Tim O’Mahony and Alan Connolly are all back running so they should be all ready for the start of February,” Ryan said.

Mark Coleman is the same so we’ve a lot of good fellas coming back.”

Equally, Cork’s players involved in All-Ireland club action will be given time by Ryan to ease themselves back in.

“In fairness, Niall [O’Leary] is fit and ready to go but he’ll get a bit of a break now,” he said.

“The two Cahalanes [Damien and Conor] have had a hectic schedule and were carrying injuries as you could see the last day at the end of the game. They’ll be another three or four weeks at least before we get them back into it. We’ll take our time. When they’re right to come back, we’ll get them back.

With the Limerick game coming quickly, changes are likely for the Rathkeale clash.

“We’ll have a good reshuffle, really. We’ll play a lot of the lads that didn’t start today,” he said. “We’d four or five training as well this morning, the likes of Ben Cunningham and Micheál Mullins and Hoggie and Sham [Séamus Harnedy] and Conor O’Callaghan, they’ll all come back in next Wednesday for consideration.”