Final touches in place
No injury concerns for Dr Crokes or East Kerry
DR Crokes will have Kieran O’Leary and Tony Brosnan available for Sunday’s County Senior Football Championship final in Austin Stack Park, despite the pair picking up injuries in the semi-final and replay with South Kerry.
Brosnan played last weekend’s semi-final replay with a hand injury he sustained in the drawn semi-final with South Kerry, while Kieran O’Leary picked up a suspected fracture to his jaw in last weekend’s replay. Brosnan scored four points from play and two frees against South Kerry last Sunday, and team selector Niall O’Callaghan confirmed to The Kerryman on Tuesday that the inside forward will be fine to take his place in the Crokes’ attack.
O’Leary suffered a heavy blow to his face in the first half of Sunday’s six-point win over South Kerry and was replaced at half-time as it was feared he had a broken jaw. However, O’Callaghan allayed those concerns on Tuesday and confirmed that O’Leary has been passed fit to play.
David Shaw and Jordan Kiely remain ruled out of contention through injury.
Meanwhile, East Kerry boss Jerry O’Sullivan confirmed that he has no fresh injury concerns approaching the final.
“We are missing Dara Moynihan long term, of course, but otherwise we have the usual knocks and bruises but nothing serious and certainly nothing that will keep any fellow out, touch wood, of the final selection for Sunday.”
Having had an extra week to prepare his side for their first county final twenty years would seem to be an advantage for the district combination, but O’Sullivan feels that such talk is overblown.
“No, it’s not an advantage for us at all because you cannot beat games,” he told The Kerryman.
“You are at the championship end of the season and you want to be playing games on a constant basis. Last Sunday week for a sixth week out playing for a lot of our fellows between the District Championship and County Championship and we are after reaching the county final so it certainly has not done us any harm.”