Written by Gar McCarthy
Michael Hurley and Damian Cahalan are Castlehaven’s biggest injury concerns ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland Club Senior Football Championship semi-final against St Bridget’s.
Two of the West Cork club’s most experienced players have been dealing with hamstring injuries since Haven’s dramatic win in the Munster club final against Dingle on December 10.
In-form Hurley and Munster’s final hero Cahalan are both against the clock to prove their fitness ahead of their clash with the Connacht champions at Thurles’ Semple Stadium (1.45pm). I’m heading into battle.
As Castlehaven manager James McCarthy himself admitted, neither Hurley nor Cahalan have been able to train as well as they would have liked since that provincial victory.
“Michael Hurley and Damian Cahalan are our main injury doubts,” admitted McCarthy.
“Michael hasn’t trained fully yet. We hope he’s okay but ahead of the All-Ireland semi-final he hasn’t fully trained. Michael is still recovering. I’m inside so I’ll take a look.
“Damian is in the same position. At the moment, neither Damian nor Michael have trained enough, so to be honest, we don’t know how they will do until closer to the match.
“I had quite a few bruises and bruises after my last game, but thankfully everyone else should be okay.”
After all the drama of the penalty shootout heroics in the Munster final before Christmas, the chance to mentally switch things up was welcomed by Haven’s management and players. Off the pitch, the Christmas period is understandably a busy time for everyone involved in Castlehaven’s senior football set-up. So was McCarthy happy to take a break for the season, or would he have preferred to continue immediately after the Munster final win?
“The honest answer is a little bit of both,” McCarthy said.
“Probably because people had the day off for Christmas, we tended to train in the morning and give the players the rest of the day off.We wanted to make Christmas as enjoyable as possible for all the players. We gave it our all. We are preparing for the All-Ireland semi-final so I hope we have a good balance.”