Mike Casey is a serious injury doubt for Limerick ahead of the Munster Senior Hurling Championship.
By Cian O'Connell
Limerick manager John Kiely has confirmed that Mike Casey is a major injury doubt for the upcoming Munster Senior Hurling Championship.
The Na Piarsaigh clubman suffered a knee ailment and will undergo further investigative scans shortly.
"We are not to the end of the process yet, but listen, he has damaged his knee - he’s got to go to Santry for further investigative scans, but at the moment unfortunately it’s not looking great for him," Kiely remarked at a press briefing held on Tuesday evening.
"It was just a simple landing. It was probably your textbook knee injury where a player just lands and tries to turn on landing, and that was it really. "It’s your textbook one, we’ve had one nearly each year for the last five years in the squad, and hopefully this is the one for this year only, if it turns out to be confirmed and fully investigated over the coming days.
"But at the minute, it looks like that is the case. Obviously we still have to go through the process."
Limerick, though, who face Clare on October 25 at Semple Stadium, are boosted by the availability of Darragh O'Donovan, who missed the closing stages of the County Championship with Doon.
Limerick senior hurling manager John Kiely.
“Darragh O’Donovan has returned to full training," Kiely stated.
"Darragh suffered a knee injury in a club game, very similar circumstances, landing and twisting at the same time. He was very fortunate that it wasn’t a more serious injury at the same time it necessitated that he missed a couple of games with his club, really important games for his club, county semi-final, county final - nobody wants to miss those games.
"Darragh knew and his club knew that the injury at the time was just too serious to take any chances with and the pragmatic and right decision was taken not to participate in those games. The proof is in the pudding and he is back in full training. It’s just a pity he wasn’t able to play in that series of games for his club. He’s a young player.
"And I’ve no doubt that they’re a good club with a really good under-age academy feeding into their system and will make county semi-finals and finals many times over the next six, seven, eight years and I know Darragh will play a big part in those games but the right decision was taken by the club and Darragh to give himself a chance to heal fully before he went back training or playing."
Richie English is also on the comeback trail according to Kiely. “Another club man of his is Richie and Richie has made fantastic progress over the last six months under the guidance Dr James Ryan and Mark Melbourne," Kiely added.
"He’s running hard, he’s working very hard and I’ve no doubt he will put on the green jersey again over the coming months. He just has a small bit of work to do, but nothing massive."
