O’Mahony set to captain Treaty as O’Grady downplays hopes

GAVIN O’MAHONY is set to captain the Limerick senior hurlers this season.

O’Mahony’s captaincy has yet to be officially rubber-stamped by manager Donal O’Grady but the 23-year-old defender has been nominated by his club, county senior champions Kilmallock.

O’Mahony skippered Limerick to a 2005 All-Ireland MHC final appearance before making his senior debut in 2007. The half-back had to wait until 2009 for his first championship start but he starred in four appearances through the qualifiers and produced a memorable performance against Dublin in Thurles, hitting eight points.

Last year, O’Mahony was one of those to withdraw his services from the panel under Justin McCarthy but has returned to work alongside O’Grady, along with a host of other top names. Brian Geary, Stephen Lucey, Damien Reale, Seamus Hickey, Wayne McNamara, Brian Murray, Tom Condon, Stephen Walsh, Mark O’Riordan, Donal O’Grady and James Ryan are also back ahead of the start of the NHL Division 2 campaign.

A 35-man Limerick panel appeared in a local newspaper last week but manager O’Grady has insisted that his squad is far from finalised.

O’Grady also explained Limerick’s decision not to participate in this year’s Waterford Crystal Cup, insisting that his players were simply not ready.

O’Grady told Limerick’s Live 95FM: “We’ve only started since January 2 because of restrictions. Things are going well but it’s slow. A lot of the players didn’t play in 2010 so they have lost a full year of development work. We’re just taking it session by session. Hopefully we’ll make a bit of progress but we haven’t any great targets for the year.”

Over the past fortnight, Limerick have played a number of challenge matches but their most recent outing, against Dublin last week, resulted in a heavy defeat.

O’Grady added: “The thing about it is that a lot of the players in the training group are involved with third level teams. Limerick wouldn’t have been fit enough to play in the Waterford Crystal Cup — that’s why we pulled out.

“We didn’t want players going in half fit pulling hamstrings and twisting their knees. In the old days, when training started in October, we would have two or three months under our belts and then, by all means, we would have taken part.

“But because of the lack of fitness we decided not to.”

He continued: “We had a couple of trial matches in October. We were very anxious to make sure that everybody was looked at and given a fair crack of the whip. We didn’t want a situation where anybody in the county felt they weren’t looked at. That’s a slow process and obviously if you’re just having trials, you’re not doing any development work. We still have a training group but our panel is not finalised.”

Meanwhile Mayo have turned to one of Galway’s most famous hurling families to guide them in 2011.

Murt Connolly, the youngest of seven brothers who guided Castlegar to the 1980 All-Ireland club title, has been appointed Mayo manager.

Connolly, whose older brother Joe is a selector with Galway, takes over from Martin Brennan and has set his sights on winning the Christy Ring Cup.

Mayo will meet Wicklow in the opening round on April 23 but before that Connolly is hopeful they can impress in Division 3B of the league.

The appointment of the new manager strengthens the link between Mayo and the famous Castlegar family as Murt’s nephew Aidan Connolly, son of the eldest Connolly brother Padraig, has been full-back for the past few years.

“We’re going to take the league very seriously, because we should be higher than Division 3B, but the Christy Ring will be the main aim,” said Connolly, whose side made a winning start to 2011 when they defeated Galway intermediate champions Pearses in a challenge on Saturday.