Cats chief confident Shefflin will make full recovery

KILKENNY manager Brian Cody is confident Henry Shefflin will make a complete recovery from the cruciate ligament injury that curtailed his All-Ireland final last September.

The talismanic Ballyhale forward isn’t the only Kilkenny player to be battling back from the dreaded cruciate complaint — John Tennyson and sub goalkeeper Richie O’Neill are also sidelined with the same complaint.

Six months is the accepted recovery period from such injuries which would suggest that both Shefflin and Tennyson could return to the panel by the back end of the league campaign.

Tennyson suffered his injury three weeks after Shefflin in a county championship quarter-final tie but Cody revealed yesterday that, for now, he was planning without the absent trio until the championship.

“The three of them are just working away and the only priority for the three lads is that they recover from injury.

“There are no time frames or targets for getting back hurling.”

The absence of Shefflin is an obvious blow to Cody’s spring ambitions but, as the manager pointed out yesterday, Shefflin sat out the league in 2007, apart from the final.

“He’s had the injury that nobody wants to get. It is a tough injury. He’s working away. He is as dedicated off the field as he always has been on it. The same goes for the other two lads.”

“They are cruel injuries, toughinjuries but they have had a top surgeon in Tadgh O’Sullivan looking after them.

“They will be given every opportunity and I have every confidence that they will come back the players they were.”

On the plus side, Cha Fitzpatrick has made a full recovery from the broken metatarsal bone in his foot and is back training with the rest of the panel and available for selection.

Of equal significance is the fact that, for the first time since the 2003 season, no Kilkenny club is involved in this year’s All-Ireland Club campaign.

“It is probably a help from our point of view but (the All-Ireland Club) is a terrific competition for lads to be involved in as well. When it doesn’t happen, it does mean that we have a fuller hand to play with.”

Whatever the circumstances, Cody has always managed an impressive balancing act in the league which has allowed him to blood new players while remaining ultra-competitive in the competition which they have won four times since 2002.

How many new faces emerge this year will make for interesting reading given the fact that their long-held dominance at underage levels in Leinster has been eroded in recent times but Cody is remaining upbeat.

“Certainly, we would like to think that we can look at a few players during the league. Hopefully there will be one or two (new) players who might have something to contribute to the team. You would still be hoping that you can pick up a few players. There is a big jump there from underage to senior. Some players can make it quickly, others make it at a later stage. It will be interesting to see how lads go.”