Seamus Flanagan dropped from Limerick matchday panel on disciplinary grounds

Limerick manager John Kiely confirmed that Gearóid Hegarty broke a bone in his hand during the draw with Cork.

Mon, 10 Feb, 2025 - 06:47

John Fogarty

John Kiely has revealed Limerick took it upon themselves to remove Seamus Flanagan from the matchday panel against Tipperary on disciplinary grounds.

Fan footage from last weekend’s game against Cork showed Flanagan shoving his hurley into Niall O’Leary’s groin area, an off-the-ball incident which wasn’t picked up by the match officials.

It is understood the Central Competitions Control Committee didn’t cite Flanagan for a retrospective suspension. However, Limerick chose to leave him out of the squad as Kiely admitted the action by the forward was “poor”.

“Seamus wasn’t togged out,” said Kiely. “It’s an internal matter. We took it on ourselves to deal with it. It’s finished, it’s done, it’s dusted. He missed today’s game, we move on. He regrets it, we move on. It was one of those moments, it was poor from him, but we move on.”

Kiely confirmed Gearóid Hegarty broke a bone in his hand after he was stood on in the first half of the draw with Cork. “He got a lot of stitches. He got a broken bone in it. It’s a nasty enough injury. He got stood on and that’s it, these things happen. He’s well on the road to recovery and we just have to make sure he’s 100% before he gets back into it.”

Kyle Hayes was taken off after feeling a pain in his leg following a first-half collision with Ronan Maher. “He had a small pinch but it was nothing serious,” said Kiely. “We’ve been lucky so far, anything that we have had hasn’t been anything serious. They’re only maybe two or three week jobs.” Feeling his team have “new energy” and a “light load” this year, Kiely believes the removal of the pre-season competitions have been a great help to Limerick.

“I’d be really happy with the contribution of everyone to date. I think we have a bit more energy this year, I think maybe a light load to carry too. A proper preseason has been a massive piece for me.

“Fellas being able to come in early December and just know there’s a clear body of work of six, seven weeks just to get physically prepared for the season ahead. I think that’s why some of our injuries that we’ve picked up aren’t serious because they’re physically strong and able for when injury comes.

“That’s something I’d like to get into the conversation around the pre-season because a competition early in the season gives you less chance to focus on your physical preparation and I think the players deserve that opportunity to be physically strong going into the season because it is a long season.”

Had Kiely the choice, he wouldn’t have fielded Fitzgibbon Cup hurlers like Adam English, Colin Coughlan, Eddie Stokes and Patrick O’Donovan in Sunday’s victory over Tipperary ahead of their semi-finals on Tuesday.

“There’s no doubt it does and it’s unfortunate that we had to play the boys we did today but you can see you have no choice in the matter, you really don’t. If you take them out of our picture today, we don’t have a team essentially."

Tipperary manager Liam Cahill was delighted with his team’s character despite the defeat. “We’ve also tried to put our own stamp on the way we’re trying to play. A lot of teams have laboured in that department, we’re not the first over the last seven, eight, nine years, a lot of teams have struggled in the physical stakes with Limerick.

“But today we moved that ball a little bit better and tried to avoid contact as much as possible and trust our hurling a bit more. Definitely, that’s the route we’ll be really going to concentrate on as the weather gets better and that ball gets drier and faster. That’s our traits. But definitely overall where we are at the moment with the conditioning of this team, I’m very, very happy.”