St Finbarr's defender Dylan Quinn fit to face Dingle in Munster Club SFC final

St Finbarrs' Dylan Quinn in action against Clonmel Commercials. Pic: Chani Anderson.

In-form St Finbarr’s corner-back Dylan Quinn has overcome a recent injury to be available for Sunday’s Munster Club SFC final against Dingle.

The groin injury picked up during the Munster quarter-final win over Clonmel forced Quinn to sit out the subsequent semi-final victory over Éire Óg Ennis a week later.

Barrs selector Ian Keeler confirmed on Tuesday evening that Quinn will be available for the provincial decider.

“Dylan is fine. He trained tonight, so we are all good,” said Keeler.

“He has been going excellent. Even going back to the Clonmel game, where he picked up the injury, he was superb, especially in the second half when we were under pressure in the middle-third. He had a great county final as well. He trained fine tonight so we are delighted to have him back.” 

Where Dingle had their say on these pages last week regarding the venue choice and their distance from Thurles, by comparison with the Barrs, Keeler was reluctant to be drawn on the issue.

With the Barrs preferring a neutral venue over a toss for home advantage, Semple Stadium was chosen by Munster fixture-makers. Dingle to Thurles is 222km, over 100km and approximately two hours more than the one-way journey facing St Finbarr's.

“Our secretary deals with all that, but at the end of the day, the venue we were given was Thurles, so that is where the match is. We have good memories from 2021,” replied Keeler when asked about Sunday’s venue.

Saturday’s Munster Club JFC final between Buttevant and Ballymacelligott will see the Cork champions traveling just 12 kilometres to Mallow, compared to the 76km trip Ballymacelligott face.

Buttevant manager Joey Hanlon said there is a benefit to his side in the decider being fixed for nearby Mallow.

“Of course it is a benefit, but I’ll be perfectly honest, the one thing these lads are going to embrace is playing a Kerry team. They are not one bit afraid of any Kerry team and never have been at underage. We won the Super 10s (Munster U14 competition) a couple of years ago, where we beat a couple of Kerry teams along the way.

“Is it an advantage to be playing them down the road? From a traveling point of view, yes. But we’d have played them in Austin Stack Park equally excited. That’s absolutely truthful. We’d have loved that excitement. We loved going to Fraher Field. We loved going to Páirc Uí Chaoimh. 

"We want to travel the country with this team. Hopefully on Saturday we’ll get a result that will take us up the country [after Christmas].”