Limerick lose veteran Darragh O'Donovan 'for the foreseeable future'

Darragh O'Donovan of Limerick leaves the pitch after picking up an injury. Pic: Thomas Flinkow/Sportsfile

Limerick’s hurlers will be without the hugely experienced Darragh O’Donovan “for the foreseeable future” after the Doon All-Star injured a shoulder in the county’s Division 1A win over Offaly in Tullamore on Sunday.

The 31-year old came off second best in a physical tussle 22 minutes into the game and, while a stretcher was called for, he was ultimately able to walk off the field unaided after being tended to by medical personnel.

“It’s an AC joint injury,” said Limerick boss John Kiely after the game. “Thankfully nothing broken but it will rule him out of the foreseeable anyway until we get him rehabbing and back out on the pitch again.

“Unfortunate but these are the things that happen and the squad depth is strong and it is just an opportunity for the next person.

“To be fair to Darragh, he has had a great campaign so far. His energy has been brilliant. He has been back to where he was, possibly at his heights, in performance levels and no doubt he will work really hard over the next few weeks to get back again.”

Limerick have two more regular league games to play, against Cork and Galway, and they sit out the first weekend of Munster Championship action before facing Cork in their opener on the weekend of April 25/26. No return date will be known for some time yet.

“We’ll have to wait and see how he responds. Some guys can bounce back out of these. We don’t know the severity of it or the grade of it yet and a lot will depend on the grade of it and how he responds so we will just take it week by week.

“I know he will do everything in his power to get back right but it’s a sore injury. For this week it is just about letting the pain settle a bit and after that then we will start to give it a bit of rehabbing.”