Cork v Tipperary: Full deck to choose from for Rebels

Cork hurling manager Ben O’Connor is hopeful of having a full panel to choose from for tomorrow night’s Allianz Hurling League Division 1A clash with Tipperary at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh (7.30pm).

While Ciarán Joyce and Shane Kingston were not considered for the opening two league games, wins at home to Waterford and away to Galway, both are now back in contention while the fact that UCC and MTU Cork are no longer in the Fitzgibbon Cup means that preparations are also more streamlined.

Beyond Pádraig Power of Blarney, who is still working towards full fitness after a cruciate injury a year ago, the management will be working from a total complement.

“This week was a full week, we’ve nearly everyone back now, touch wood,” O’Connor says.

“Paudie Power was nearly the only one – he’s not injured either, it’s just that he’s been out so long.

“He’s back training but he’s just not match-ready and otherwise we have a full squad to pick from.”

Along with Cork, Tipp are the only other side to have recorded two wins from two in the early stages of the league – Kilkenny (two points) and Limerick (zero) have each played just one game as each county takes a turn to miss a round due to the fact that there are seven-team divisions.

After this weekend, the entire league takes a break as the third-level competitions conclude and the week after that is Cork’s ‘bye week’, meaning a three-week gap until the next outing, away to Kilkenny.

To that end, O’Connor is keen to head into the hiatus in positive form.

“From the outset, we said that we were going to try to win every game,” he says.

“These are the ones now that, when you have a couple of weeks off, if anything went wrong, you can’t rectify it straightaway because you've no match for the next couple of weeks.

“So, it'd be nice to finish on a win here as well, but, look, we'll take it as it comes now. I’d imagine there'll be a few changes again because some fellas have had two games now in two weeks, along with training, so we'll be giving game-time to fellas that are just coming back from injuries and that sort of stuff.

“We're trying to even it out as much as we can.”