Limerick suffer blow as Allen confirms Hickey will miss league campaign

LIMERICK senior hurling manager John Allen has revealed that he is planning for the vast majority of next year’s National Hurling League without experienced defender Seamus Hickey.

The Murroe-Boher clubman, Young Hurler of the Year in 2007, will be absent for the early months of the year due to study commitments.

Hickey, who won a Fitzgibbon Cup medal with UL earlier this year, may not feature in any of Limerick’s National League matches but Allen has confirmed that the versatile star will be available for the Munster SHC quarter-final against Tipperary on May 27.

Allen revealed: “Seamus will be in America for a few months. He’ll be back for the end of the league, at the earliest.”

Allen has also revealed that Hickey’s Murroe-Boher clubmate Sean Tobin is facing up to three months on the sidelines after undergoing a hip operation.

And the former Cork supremo, who masterminded All-Ireland glory for the Rebels in 2005, has bucked the trend by voicing support for the ban on collective inter-county training, which officially ends on Sunday.

Allen plans to oversee collective training for the first time as Limerick boss next Tuesday evening and he explained: “It’s not like it was maybe 15 or 20 years ago where you might have been beaten in May and you wouldn’t be out again until the next April or May. And training with the club then wasn’t half as difficult as it is now. The days when you got fellas back in at the beginning of January a stone and a half overweight are long gone.

“My fellas will be coming in ready and nobody will be spending three months playing catch up. I don’t see what the big broo-ha is about it at all.”

Meanwhile, Tipperary GAA delegates have strongly approved a proposal aimed at stopping major development projects at national and provincial level in favour of bailing out cash-strapped clubs.

The move, which calls on the GAA to halt major projects and divert money to help struggling clubs instead, has been condemned as a “sledgehammer approach” by Munster Council chairman Sean Walsh.

But the motion from Moyne-Templetuohy, the home of former GAA Presidential candidate Sean Fogarty, received strong support at the recently held Tipperary annual convention.