Dara Sheedy declared fit as Cork set to fly north for Donegal clash

There is uncertainty over another 2026 championship debutant in the Cork football attack, with David Buckley having picked up a knock over the weekend.

BACK IN THE FRAME: Cork young gun Dara Sheedy. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Cork forward Dara Sheedy has overcome a hamstring injury that has plagued him since mid-April and will be available for the county’s Sam Maguire Round 2A trip to Ballybofey this Saturday.

There is, however, uncertainty over another 2026 championship debutant in the Cork football attack, with David Buckley having picked up a knock over the weekend.

Buckley, who kicked a point when introduced during the Munster final defeat to Kerry and raised both white and orange flags when in from the off against Meath, will be monitored as the week progresses before a final call is made on his Ballybofey involvement.

Newcomer Sheedy had been nursing a hamstring problem since limping out of Cork's Munster U20 round-robin defeat of Kerry on April 16. 

Four days earlier, he was a half-time withdrawal in the seniors’ Munster quarter-final win over Limerick after sustaining a heavy hit in the opening period.

Following on from fit-again Brian Hurley being a late addition to the Cork bench for the win over Meath two weeks ago, manager John Cleary is delighted to welcome back another forward option.

“During the season, guys will get injured and guys will come and go. It is very attritional. Sometimes you just get a bad run of it at a particular time, so anyone that is coming out the far side, you are delighted to get them back,” Cleary told the Irish Examiner on Tuesday evening.

Definitely ruled out for the game against the Division 1 League champions is suspended midfielder Colm O’Callaghan. Cleary doubled down on his initial assessment of Brendan Cawley’s red card to Cork’s No.8 in the second half of the win over Meath.

“I’ll probably be a bit biased and say it was very harsh, but I was up the country the weekend before last at a lot of games and everyone I met seemed to say the same thing: that it was very, very harsh, so that said to me that it was,” the Cork manager remarked.

“The person that mattered on the day was the ref, and the Central Hearings Committee then saw fit to agree with him.

“We are disappointed, Colm is disappointed, but we can’t do anything about it now at this stage. Unfortunately, we have suffered a couple of disappointing sending-offs like that in the last few years, and this was just another one of them.” 

Also ruled out for this weekend, as well as the rest of the year, is recent cruciate victim Mattie Taylor.

Cleary paid tribute to a half-back who, prior to the broken collarbone he sustained during the League that subsequently kept him out of the Munster SFC, had started 32 consecutive championship games for Cork.

“Everyone in the group is devastated for Mattie. Didn’t have a lot of luck there the last couple of months. Broke his collarbone first and really pushed it to get back. Unfortunately, just when he got back, he did his cruciate, so devastating for Mattie.

“Knowing Mattie, I’m sure he’ll take this on and it won’t be that long before we see him back on the horse again.” 

Cork will travel to Ballybofey via a Cork-Derry flight on Saturday morning, with Cleary almost happier that the game has been fixed for Saturday as opposed to Sunday.

“With a Sunday game, you get back late on Sunday, and lads are back into work on Monday morning. So at least with a Saturday fixture, they have Sunday to relax. Whatever the outcome, you have a day’s more preparation for whatever comes next, whether that be an All-Ireland quarter-final two weeks after or a Round 3 game potentially the Saturday after.

“Every game matters, and the way the games are so attritional and so exhausting for players, I think if we were given the choice, Saturday wasn’t the worst day for us.”

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