Injured Cats star Shefflin facing six months out
Shefflin, who picked up his eighth All-Ireland senior hurling medal last September in the Cats’ win over Tipperary, is to go under the knife to remedy a knock picked up on duty with his club, Ballyhale Shamrocks, in the Kilkenny championship.
“Henry injured his shoulder against O’Loughlin Gaels in the county semi-final,” Ballyhale chairman Sean Reid revealed yesterday.
“He was able to play on that day, and he played against James Stephens in the final and the replay as well, but he’ll have to have an operation on it soon and he’s likely to miss out on at least six months as he recovers.
“That means we’ll be without him here in the club for the early part of the county championship, and Kilkenny look like they won’t have him at all for the national hurling league, because even if he had the operation right now you’d be talking about May or maybe June before he’d be right.”
Shefflin, who will be 33 in January, has battled back from serious injuries in the past. He has recovered from two ruptured cruciate ligament injuries which necessitated operations in recent years, one in the All-Ireland final against Limerick in 2007 and the other picked up against Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final of 2010.
The Cats star resumed his intercounty and club career after both injuries, and even managed to line out in the All-Ireland final of 2010 just weeks after picking up the knee injury, though he was forced off before half-time in Kilkenny’s defeat by Tipperary.
The news will come as a headache to Kilkenny manager Brian Cody, particularly with the decision earlier in the week of James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick to leave the Cats panel at the age of 26.
A clubmate of Shefflin’s, Fitzpatrick is believed to be interested in travelling next year, but Shamrocks chairman Reid said yesterday that Fitzpatrick’s plans should not impact significantly on the club’s prospects.
“Cha is going travelling later in the year so he should be available to us,” said Reid, who pointed out that another of their Kilkenny players, Michael Fennelly, also picked up an injury in the local championship.
“Michael broke a bone in his hand so in one way it’s almost no harm that we’re not still involved in the Leinster championship. We’d be without Henry and Michael if we were still going, and any team would be fairly shook if they had to line out without the pair of them. We’d prefer to still be going, but at least this way we have a break for a few months until we’re out again.”
Meanwhile new Galway hurling boss Anthony Cunningham will be without Aonghus Callanan for 2012 with the attacker moving to Australia for a year. The Liam Mellowes club man was not included in a 37-man squad announced this week. However, promising defender Niall Donoghue is due to return from Australia in January. Cunningham and his management team of Tom Helebert and Mattie Kenny have stressed that their squad is open-ended, after naming a panel which includes 14 players who are U21 next season. The new squad will meet this Saturday where individual conditioning programmes will be given to players.
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