Cork's Robbie O'Flynn suffers another hamstring blow

Cork’s Robbie O’Flynn could be set for another spell on the sidelines after manager Pat Ryan confirmed that the attacker sustained a hamstring injury in Saturday night’s loss to Kilkenny.

Named at corner-forward, the Erin’s Own man was relocated to wing-forward at half-time and was involved in setting up a goal chance for Patrick Horgan soon after the restart before scoring point.

He had to be substituted in the 44th minute, however, and having missed much of the 2023 championship campaign following a serious hamstring injury in the Munster SHC game against Tipperary, he will again need to recuperate.

Ryan is hopeful, however, that O’Flynn will be back soon.

“Yeah, I think that’s a bit of a hamstring injury again,” he said.

“That’s disappointing for Robbie. Obviously, after his injury last year he had to go for an operation. He’s very disappointed but we’ll give him the best of care and treatment and hopefully he won’t be out for too long.

“It doesn’t seem that bad, he was able to walk off, but it was still disappointing.”

Cork also lost Robert Downey to injury in the first half, but Ryan does not expect that to keep him out for long.

“Rob came into the game with a bit of an ankle injury,” he said, “but nothing too serious and he played Fitzgibbon during the week and had a great game for UCC.

“It was more precautionary than anything.”

Cork lost by a single point but a slow start in the first half left them trailing by nine points. Ryan was disappointed with how the team had performed in the opening stages.

“I'm not going to make excuses now, it wasn't good enough,” he said.

“We need to figure it out really, but I think we were too slow and ponderous against a very good Kilkenny team that worked their socks off in the first 25 minutes and put us under fierce pressure.

“I thought we were architects of our own thing, we didn't move the ball quick enough, we didn't get the ball into inside line. But look, very proud of our guys in the second half, we'd a lot of chances, left a lot of scores out there but look we'll take the positive.

“As I said, losing at home in Páirc Uí Chaoimh is not something we want to be doing.”

One of the bright spots for Cork was the return of Mark Coleman, who came on as a sub in the second half.
“Yeah, Mark Coleman played very well,” Ryan said.

“I’m delighted for Mark to get back, he was very anxious to get back. He’s worked fierce hard since he’s been out with a very complex injury but the physios and the doctors and his surgeon in England looked after him great.

“Look, Mark is a huge player for us going forward and we’d love to be have been able to start him but he got 25 minutes and you could see the ability that he has and he took one or two shots that normally he would put over but delighted to get Mark back and Tim [O’Mahony] as well.

“Ethan Twomey came on for us as well he’s been out, Eoin Downey had a great game before he went off with a shin injury. Delighted to get those fellas back and we move forward.”

There is no hurling action next weekend as the Fitzgibbon Cup final takes place and so Cork’s next outing is at home to Waterford on Sunday, February 25. Ryan is optimistic that almost everybody will be available for that.

“We've a full squad to pick from now going forward next week, so we'll be driving on,” he said.

“We'll have a full 35 at training, we'll see, one or two injuries that we picked up there but I think they're only superficial ones, just knocks and stuff like that, so looking forward to getting two weeks of training in and welcoming Waterford here on Sunday week.”