This article is from page 112 of the 2009-05-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 112 JPG
With four weeks to Clare’s crucial Opening championship appearance, the county’s preparations appeared to suffer a significant setback in the last week as injuries to Jonathon Clancy and Gerry O’Grady made their avail- ability for the Munster semi-final clash with either Cork or Tipperary ime Co)v lo)
Clancy sustained a broken fin- ger last week during training with his club, Clarecastle, ahead of the first round tie against Tubber while O’Grady had to be withdrawn af- ter only six minutes in Crusheen’s Group | match with Corofin in Kil- lanena on Sunday after injuring his foot.
Initially, it was rumoured that de- fender O’Grady had broken a bone in his foot but it 1s now thought that the injury is not as bad as first sus- pected.
With the countdown to the Munster championship well underway, man- ager Mike McNamara is hopeful that both players will recover in time to
take their places in the side.
‘Jonathon broke his finger so hope- fully he will be back in harness in three to four weeks which might be cutting it tight, but that would appear to be the prognosis for now.
“With Gerry O’Grady, we are still awaiting the final report but again af- ter the initial reaction, there is now certainly hope that he will take part in the June 21st match.
Wa 0) er: SBMA AEE LMA WE DODLBE-DUR YANO ICE pected so of course, anything less than that would have to give us hope. To lose either of those players would be a horrific loss as both of them are part and parcel of the plans to launch an assault on the Munster champion-
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With more club action scheduled for a fortnight’s time, McNamara says he hopes there will be no further injuries to his squad.
‘As well as the second round of championship matches in two weeks, we also have a series of challenges matches which may take their toll as
well – but we have to go all guns blazing now.
“We must re-address where we stand and we must put ourselves in a
rightful position for June 21. If we can remain injury free for the next couple of weeks, then I can see no reason why we won’t finish the job that we started last year.”