Darragh Fitzgibbon: hurling takes a back seat to health

Cork hurling captain Darragh Fitzgibbon is as yet unsure if he will feature in Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final with Offaly at FBD Semple Stadium (3.30pm).

However, the Charleville man is glad to be close to a return to action so soon after a bout of appendicitis which ruled him out of the Munster SHC win over Clare and the provincial final defeat to Limerick.

Stomach pains on Thursday, May 14 led to an appendectomy that weekend – naturally, there were fears that his first season as skipper might be prematurely over.

“All those scenarios, myself and Dr Adrian Murphy went through with the surgeon,” he said at an event marking eir's continued sponsorship of the All-Ireland SHC.

“At the end of the day, your health is your health and it had to come out. So, I had no decision really to make. And it all kind of happened in a little bit of a whirlwind.

“I thought I had a bug going to training, and next thing I was on the road to CUH to see if I needed to get my appendix out. And then I had to, two or three hours later. So yeah, at the end of the day, he explained the scenarios to me.

“And what you’re explained a serious enough situation like that, hurling decisions kind of go out the window and a decision just had to be made to get rid of it.”

In terms of a recovery in time for the weekend, Fitzgibbon is not making any rash predictions.

“Obviously I’m still in that five- and six-week [recovery] period,” he said.

“I’m back doing more than I did previous to the Munster final, but we still have a week of training left. We’ll have to see how Tuesday and Thursday go. I’ll try my best obviously to get back for it, but we’ll see how it goes after Thursday night.

“I haven’t done any full session yet. That kind of wasn’t in my schedule. I probably still am on track, but just see how it goes.”

• eir Ambassador Darragh Fitzgibbon marking eir’s continued support of the GAA All‑Ireland Senior Hurling Championship and the fourth year of the Poc Tapa Challenge, a competition open to every GAA club in the country, where the fastest team wins €5,000 for their club and the chance to play in Croke Park on semi‑final day. To enter, visit @eir.Ireland on Instagram. eir is recognised by Opensignal as having Ireland’s No.1 5G network coverage.