Healy to miss league semi-final with Kilkenny
Galway senior hurlers have been hit by an injury crisis ahead of the Tribesmen’s National Hurling League semi-final against holders Kilkenny at the Gaelic Grounds, Limerick this Sunday (2pm).
Corner back Fergal Moore is definitely out after having pins put in to rectify a broken finger injury while fellow defender Iarla Tannian and sharpshooter Niall Healy have both sustained hamstring injuries in the past week and are rated doubtful.
In many ways, Sunday’s clash at the Gaelic Grounds between the 2012 All-Ireland finalists is intriguing, particularly given both teams have impressed when they have had to throughout the Spring.
For Galway’s part, they got their league off to a strong start with a 0-28 to 1-12 win over Dublin before the Westerners, shorn of players through injury, lost on the road to both Waterford and Kilkenny – the latter a 1-16 to 2-16 loss.
They defeated Tipperary in their next home game, drew with All-Ireland champions Clare in Ennis and qualified for the penultimate stage of the league with a 1-20 to 1-12 win over Limerick in the quarter-finals. It will be this run that Anthony Cunningham’s charges will hope to build on.
As for Kilkenny, they lost their opening fixture to Clare before accounting for Tipperary and Galway in their ensuing fixtures. A 1-22 to 3-13 loss to Dublin seemed to indicate there were still chinks in the Kilkenny armour but this notion was put down to nothing more than a lapse in concentration when the Cats hit eight goals in their next two games against Waterford (4-22 to 0-14) and Wexford (4-22 to 2-16) respectively.