Kilkenny v Cork: Rebels deal with growing injury list

Cork have shuffled their pack in the national hurling league so far – and, even if management were inclined to change their approach on the return to action, their hand would be forced.

The Rebels, still top of the Division 1A table despite not playing last weekend, travel to UPMC Nowlan Park on Sunday to take on Kilkenny (3.15pm).

For their second league game, away to Galway, there were four alterations from the victory over Waterford and then six between the Galway and Tipperary games, with ten All-Ireland final starters in the line-up for each outing.

This weekend, the options are reduced slightly due to injuries, but manager Ben O’Connor feels it can represent an opportunity for others.

“We have Rob [Downey] out and Duds [Diarmuid Healy] is out as well,” he says, “and that’s on top of Mark [Coleman] and Deccie [Dalton] and Séamie [Harnedy].

“All of them are out for the weekend, but they’re all only small knocks. Duds is probably the most serious, he has a quad problem, but you’re talking about a couple of weeks for all of them.

“We've all been making changes all along, but this has forced us into making more changes, which isn’t a bad thing

“We would have been making a few anyway, but there’ll probably be extra now, because of the injuries. But, as I’ve said, that’s what fellas are training for and there’s an opportunity now on Sunday so hopefully they’ll put their hands up.”

The two-week gap between the Tipp and Kilkenny games afforded the management the first proper chance for hurling training, with physical work preceding the start of the league and then three consecutive matches.

“It was nice to get a good block of work in,” O’Connor says.

“We got a lot of hurling done and it was nice to get a break too after the three games in 13 days.

“We had a bit of fun in training too, it wasn’t all too serious. You’d be hoping now that when the weather picks up, things will start speeding up a bit – we were lucky that it was mostly dry when we were training but the conditions underfoot were tough, which has been conducive to fast, free-flowing hurling.

“At the same time, it’s been like that for everyone.”

Last weekend, Waterford and Tipperary missed the chance to join Cork on six points at the top of the table, losing to Kilkenny and Limerick respectively.

The latter pair are now on four points as well and represent Cork’s next two matches, both away.

“It does show how competitive the league is,” O’Connor says of the packed bunch.

“We’ve had two home games out of three – you want to be winning all your home games but we have two tough away matches coming up and you’d hope that they’ll tell us more about ourselves.”