Cork hurling captain Stephen McDonnell has been ruled out of the Munster SHC quarter-final against Tipperary on May 22 because of a broken elbow he sustained in a challenge match last month against Clare.

Rebels manager Kieran Kingston confirmed at the Munster Championships launch in the Bru Boru Cultural Centre in Cashel yesterday that the defender will miss the their first match of the Championship campaign.

"Yes Stephen McDonnell is out, he will certainly miss the game on Sunday week,” said Kingston. “Otherwise we will have a clean bill of health. You're always going to have injuries, every team is going to have injuries, part and parcel of hurling. I suppose it's unfortunate for us that you lose your captain. He's a good leader for us on and off the pitch, but that's why you have a panel of players. One guy's misfortune is another guy's opportunity. Every panel will have problems like that and we just have to move on.”

Kingston admitted that Tipperary will be favourites to win the Munster quarter-final, but he and his players are nevertheless looking forward to the challenge of facing them in Semple Stadium.

"Tipp are raging favourites for the game,” he said. “That is totally understandable. We're outsiders and it's well documented in the last few weeks around Cork's position but that's understandable given our league performance and the performance of this core team over the last few years. That is understandable. At the same time I think Cork and Tipp games take on a life of their own. Cork like going to Thurles, the Cork public like going to Thurles, we like going, the players like going so all we are focusing on is to be the best we possibly can be on the day and see where that takes it.”

Cork lost all of their regulation Allianz Hurling League Division 1A matches this year but avoided relegation thanks to a victory over Galway in the play-off. Kingston believes that crucial victory has given his team some badly needed momentum for the Championship.

"Division One status retained, it does something for us, no doubt,” he said. “We were disappointed with our League campaign, some people have written that it was part of a great master plan. It was no master plan. We set out our stall at the beginning of the league, we did not want to be relegated. We wanted to retain our status, number one. We certainly didn't want to be fighting a relegation play off. But three weeks or four weeks out from that we realised that was going to be the case so we just focused on that one game. We got a good performance against Kilkenny, disappointed we didn't get the result. We always focus on our performance let the result take care of itself and we didn't get the result.

"The Tipperary game afterwards, I don’t think that had any real bearing for either side and had no bearing on the championship. We were very happy with the reaction we got from the players for an away match in Galway that we had to win. It parked the rest of the league and that is the most positive thing from it.”

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