Kerry delay naming team until last minute

KERRY will not name their side to face Cork in the Munster SFC Final replay until Sunday afternoon due to a number of niggling injuries sustained in the drawn game.

Captain Declan O’Sullivan is their chief concern. The South Kerry man is undergoing treatment on a bruised hand but Kingdom GAA chiefs are confident he will be fit for selection.

Meanwhile, Michael Quirke of Kerins O’Rahillys and a member of the 2004 All-Ireland winning squad has been recalled to the panel and trained on Monday night with the panel in Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney. Quirke opted out at the beginning of this year’s National League campaign due to commitments with the Superleague basketball side, Tralee Tigers.

Kerry have been forced to make one change following the sending-off of midfielder Kieran Donaghy during the second half of last Sunday’s dramatic drawn encounter. Speculation is rife that Eoin Brosnan will be moved to partner Dara Ó Sé in the centre.

Meath have an injury doubt in Joe Sheridan for their All-Ireland qualifier with Laois at Navan on Saturday. Sheridan picked up a hamstring injury and was unable to train last week.

The Longford team to play Derry in the qualifiers shows one change from the side that beat Tipperary, Diarmuid Masterson in at centre-back for the injured Arthur O’Connor.

Wexford will not name their team to play Fermanagh at Enniskillen on Saturday until star player Mattie Forde’s case is resolved.

Forde has been offered the option of having his case heard by the Central Hearings Committee and, if required, by the Central Committee and the Disputes Resolution Authority before Saturday.

Forde, who almost single-handedly blew Laois away in the quarter final of the Leinster championship put the bad publicity surrounding the incident with Offaly’s Shane Sullivan in the semi-final behind him last weekend to score six of his county’s eight points in their win over Monaghan.

Westmeath footballers are likely to be without three key figures for Saturday’s football qualifier with Sligo.

David O’Shaughnessy has not trained or played in recent weeks due to a leg injury.

Attackers Gary Dolan and Joe Fallon are also under an injury cloud — Fallon only lasted three minutes in a club championship match for Athlone last weekend before limping off with a recurrence of an injury he sustained in the first half of the qualifier win over Limerick two weeks ago. Another attacker, PJ Ward, has not trained with the panel since the Limerick game.

Former All-Stars Eamon O’Hara, Padraig Doohan and Karol O’Neill are nursing injuries ahead of Sligo’s qualifier. The trio picked up knocks in the win over Leitrim last weekend but the selectors are hopeful their injuries will have cleared up by the weekend.

Defender Barry Kivlehan missed the Leitrim game with a calf injury and is not expected to play.

Liam Hayes will decide his future as Carlow manager next week following a meeting with selectors JJ Lambert, Tom Foley and Pat Carter. The Skryne man’s two-year term is still not concluded, with at least one Tommy Murphy Cup game to be played, against Wicklow on the weekend of July 22.

He is on record as not being a fan of former GAA president Seán Kelly’s brainchild, however. Following Carlow’s defeat by Meath in the All-Ireland qualifiers, Hayes said his team would not take its place in the Tommy Murphy Cup, a decision quickly overruled by the county board. The prime motivation for this, though, was to avoid financial sanctions, and how seriously the county is taking the competition can be seen in the fact that the team will not train together before the clash with Wicklow.

LONGFORD (SFC v Derry): D. Sheridan (c); D. Brady, N. Farrell, C. Conefrey; S. Mulligan, D. Masterson, D. Reilly; B. McElvaney, L. Keenan; T. Smullen, P. Barden, P. Berry; D. Barden, P. Dowd, B. Kavanagh.