Cork hurling manager Ben O\u2019Connor is hopeful of having a full panel to choose from for tomorrow night\u2019s Allianz Hurling League Division 1A clash with Tipperary at SuperValu P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh (7.30pm).<\/p>\n
While Ciar\u00e1n Joyce and Shane Kingston were not considered for the opening two league games, wins at home to Waterford and away to Galway, both are now back in contention while the fact that UCC and MTU Cork are no longer in the Fitzgibbon Cup means that preparations are also more streamlined.<\/p>\n
Beyond P\u00e1draig Power of Blarney, who is still working towards full fitness after a cruciate injury a year ago, the management will be working from a total complement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week was a full week, we\u2019ve nearly everyone back now, touch wood,\u201d O\u2019Connor says.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaudie Power was nearly the only one \u2013 he\u2019s not injured either, it\u2019s just that he\u2019s been out so long.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s back training but he\u2019s just not match-ready and otherwise we have a full squad to pick from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with Cork, Tipp are the only other side to have recorded two wins from two in the early stages of the league \u2013 Kilkenny (two points) and Limerick (zero) have each played just one game as each county takes a turn to miss a round due to the fact that there are seven-team divisions.<\/p>\n
After this weekend, the entire league takes a break as the third-level competitions conclude and the week after that is Cork\u2019s \u2018bye week\u2019, meaning a three-week gap until the next outing, away to Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
To that end, O\u2019Connor is keen to head into the hiatus in positive form.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the outset, we said that we were going to try to win every game,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the ones now that, when you have a couple of weeks off, if anything went wrong, you can\u2019t rectify it straightaway because you’ve no match for the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it’d be nice to finish on a win here as well, but, look, we’ll take it as it comes now. I\u2019d imagine there’ll be a few changes again because some fellas have had two games now in two weeks, along with training, so we’ll be giving game-time to fellas that are just coming back from injuries and that sort of stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re trying to even it out as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork hurling manager Ben O\u2019Connor is hopeful of having a full panel to choose from for tomorrow night\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-282868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}