Tipperary will be without Séamus Callanan for Sunday’s hurling league final against Galway with a broken thumb. An All Star for the last three years, the Drom & Inch forward sustained the injury in last weekend’s semi-final win over Wexford.
Team manager Michael Ryan told the Tipperary Star that he expected the forward to be out for three to four weeks but to return in time for the championship opener on May 21st against Cork in the Munster quarter-final.
“We have an important match next weekend and he is not going to be available so, yeah, he is frustrated,” Ryan told the newspaper. “But I am fully aware that when you play a game you run that risk and we run the same risk every night in training.
“This is exactly what the panel is for. We have had surgery on the panel - the panel is back down to thirty-five. There really is intense competition in the panel and this is going to create an opportunity - somebody is going to benefit from it. It is unfortunate, but it creates an opportunity - somebody is going to start instead of him,” Michael Ryan said.
“Séamie is a starter and we can take that as read, but someone is going to get a jersey now that they may or may not have been expecting. This really creates an opportunity for someone,”
In the same interview he also told the Tipperary Star that full back James Barry would be fit to play in the league final despite picking up a minor injury at the weekend.
