Tipp make five changes for Wexford showdown
Into Michael Ryan’s team come goalkeeper Darragh Mooney, James Barry, Michael Cahill, Barry Heffernan (this quartet are making their first league start of 2018) and Patrick Bonner Maher.
Heffernan was centre-back for University of Limerick on Tuesday evening as they overcame IT Carlow in the Fitzgibbon Cup semi-final, a game where Jason Forde and John McGrath, named in the Tipperary full-forward line for the visit of Wexford, contributed 3-9 between them.
Patrick Maher was another on Fitzgibbon Cup duty on Tuesday, lining out at centre-forward for the defeated Dublin Institute of Technology.
Making way are goalkeeper Paul Maher, corner-back Alan Flynn, full-back Tomás Hamill and injured pair Joe O’Dwyer and Dan McCormack.
Limerick captain Declan Hannon will make his first league appearance of 2018 in tomorrow’s Division 1B fixture against Dublin.
A hamstring injury has kept Hannon out of action since the first week of January. Aaron Gillane, who had been struggling with an ankle injury, is named at corner-forward.
Elsewhere, Clare hurling manager Gerry O’Connor is confident the Banner can improve on the performances which saw them take maximum points off Kilkenny and Tipperary for this Sunday’s visit of Cork.
“The big thing for us is that we have put two good performances together and we would like to think based on what we have seen on the training pitch, with the coaches and the rest of the management team over the past two weeks, that we are ready again to build on the performances that we gave against Tipperary and Kilkenny,” O’Connor told GAA.ie.
“It is our last home game, possibly, in the league until we play in the championship. We just feel we are ready to give another top class performance again on Sunday,” he added.
The Banner squad has been bolstered ahead of Sunday’s game by the return to training of Paul Flanagan and Jamie Shanahan.
They have a stronger hand to pick from than was the case 12 months ago.
“As the Fitzgibbon has advanced and now got to the final stage, more and more of our players are coming back into full training.
“We really are only down a few guys; Cian Dillon is travelling, he will be back in March and Aaron Cunningham is gone for the year and Aaron Shanagher has an ACL.”
D Mooney; S O’Brien, J Barry, M Cahill; B Heffernan, P Maher, P Feehan; B Maher, R Maher; S Curran, N McGrath, P Maher; M Breen, J Forde, J McGrath.
N Quaid; S Finn, S Hickey, R English; D Byrnes, D Hannon, D Morrissey; P Browne, C Lynch; G Hegarty, T Morrissey, D Reidy; A Gillane, S Flanagan, B Murphy.
