Limerick boss McKenna freshens up panel

Limerick senior hurling manager Joe McKenna has axed eight players, including regular forward Pat Tobin, for his initial 31-man panel for next season.

Tobin is one of the more high profile players missing - the Murroe/Boher clubman played in all six of the Shannonsiders' championship games last summer. His brother Kevin is also an absentee.

The other players dropped - Donnacha Sheehan, Mickey Cahill, Michael Clifford, Alan O'Connor, Kieran O'Dwyer and John Fitzgerald - were also members of last season's panel.

Sheehan, captain of the Shannonsiders' All-Ireland Under-21 winning side of 2001, started against Tipperary, Antrim and Laois in last summer's championship.

Some if not all are likely to return, but McKenna's move is surely a bid to keep players on their toes and rekindle the glory days of the mid-nineties when Limerick won a brace of Munster SHC titles (1994, '96) and a NHL crown (1997).

The availability of Kilmallock defender Paudie O'Dwyer is uncertain as he has not yet returned to training from an extended break.

Former Under-21 star Mark Keane (South Liberties), absent from the Limerick senior panel for the past year-and-a-half, has been recalled and will get a chance to impress in next month's newly-created Waterford Crystal tournament.

Murroe/Boher's Willie Walsh, an All-Ireland Under-21 medal winner in 2000 and 2001, is also back from injury.

Each Munster county, bar All-Ireland champions Cork, will contest the Waterford Crystal tournament, which begins on January 15 and will include five third-level colleges from around the province.