Wexford's Mark Fanning to miss Kilkenny clash by a finger

Four nights out and Mark Fanning is close to conceding that this evening’s Leinster semi-final has come just a little early for him. During a training session in Portugal last month, he put his hand up to catch a ball — only he slightly misjudged it and it flicked off the top of his finger.

The injury was minor enough but it developed into something serious when it became infected, requiring time in hospital. It forced the Wexford goalkeeper to sit out the Leinster quarter-final win over Laois and now puts his participation against Kilkenny in jeopardy.

“It’s not where quite where I’d like it to be. It was an innocuous enough sort of thing at the time. I’m over the worst of it now. You would see it happening to other players and they wouldn’t come away from it as worse as I did. It was a strange one.”