Treat Leinster just like Munster, says O’Hanlon

÷ WEXFORD’S Matthew O’Hanlon has urged Croke Park to rethink the rules governing relegation from the Liam MacCarthy Cup as the current situation simply proves that Munster hurling is treated differently to Leinster. The bottom-placed side in the Leinster group faces automatic relegation, to be replaced by the Joe McDonagh champions unless Kerry win that particular competition. In that case, they need to beat the bottomplaced team in Munster to gain entry into their provincial championship. ‘I don’t think it’s right at all. It makes no sense and it definitely needs to be looked at, because it is not fair,’ said the Model joint captain, who reckons it was pushed through at Congress without people realising what they were voting on. ‘It was something that probably wasn’t highlighted enough at Congress and the people who were in Congress didn’t make enough of the decision. It basically says Munster hurling are the aristocrats and they are looking down on Leinster. Why should the fifth-placed team in Munster not get relegated if the fifthplaced team in Leinster does?’ asked O’Hanlon, whose team beat Dublin by two points on Sunday.

CORK dual star Rena Buckley, winner of 18 All Ireland medals, has announced her retirement from the inter-county scene. Her number of Celtic Crosses make her the most successful GAA player in history. Playing both codes for Cork since the early 2000s, Buckley won 11 All-Ireland medals in Ladies football and seven in camogie. She also became the first person to captain their county to All-Ireland titles in both codes, skippering the footballers to glory in 2012 and the camogie side last year. The Inniscarra native also won six Ladies football All-Stars and five more in camogie, but she didn’t feature for the footballers last year as she focused exclusively on the camogie side that she was captaining.

÷MAYO midfielder, Tom Parsons underwent the first part of two stages of surgery last Saturday to repair the knee he dislocated against Galway.