GAELIC GAMES NEWS:KILKENNY'S HOPES of bouncing back from their hurling league loss to Dublin suffered another setback last night when Martin Comerford announced his retirement from inter-county duties.
The O’Loughlin Gaels forward, who captained his club to the All-Ireland final on St Patrick’s Day, had been invited to join the squad for the upcoming championship by manager Brian Cody, but has opted to decline.
“The time comes for everyone to call it a day,” said Comerford. “Now is a good time for me to leave.”
Comerford, who joined the panel in 2001 despite never having featured as an under-age player for the county, went on to win six senior All-Irelands, five leagues titles and three All Star awards.
He said one of his greatest honours was playing on an All-Ireland winning team captained by his brother Andy, but he left with nothing but good memories.
“I got to play with and against the best,” he said. “Playing in a full Croke Park on All-Ireland day was beyond compare. I consider myself a lucky man to have enjoyed an experience like that.”
Meanwhile, Dublin football manager Pat Gilroy says he will not be finalising his championship panel until the week after next. But he confirmed reports that a number of players had already been let go.
"We haven't finished drawing up the panel just yet," he told The Irish Times, "and of the players still involved I'm not sure all of them will make the final list. There's a number of players we've been looking at in club matches, which we've videoed and analysed, and a good few coming back from injury so we have to make space for that.
“Thirty or as close to it as possible would be the target figure and we hope to be able announce the names on Tuesday week.”
Among those who have gone are Paddy Andrews, Pat Burke and Blaine Kelly.
Dublin trained last night for the first time since the league final defeat by Cork and are travelling to London this weekend for a challenge match with London and a visit to the McLaren Mercedes Formula One team, which is also sponsored by Vodafone.
Gilroy revealed he had to sacrifice the team’s optimal chances of winning in the league final. The team led by eight points with half an hour left but sustained a succession of injuries in attack.
The loss of strike forwards Bernard Brogan and Diarmuid Connolly was particularly debilitating but the manager says that he could have left them on the field.
“The physio said that they could play on but that the injuries would take weeks longer to clear up so there was no real choice there with the championship coming up. It was still a good league for us. With all the injuries we had there was a great opportunity to try out younger players and overall we did very well.”
Most of the team’s injury problems are clearing and former captain Paul Griffin is back with the county after fully recovering from a cruciate injury picked up in March of last year.
The last chance for players to impress the management comes this day week in a challenge match with Monaghan to be played at 7pm at Parnell Park. Proceeds of the match will go to support three charities, social care agency Crosscare, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, and the Peter McVerry Trust, which combats homelessness, drug abuse and social exclusion.
Elsewhere, Antrim footballers have named two championship debutants for Sunday’s visit to Ballybofey to take on Donegal.
Seán O’Neill starts in goal, the fourth player in the past two years to have worn the number one jersey for the county, and in front of him Ricky Johnston makes his first championship appearance in place of Andy McClean, who has missed a lot of training because of injury.
The biggest injury loss for the county, which lost its Division Two status after just one season, is that of Kevin McGourty from the 2010 All-Ireland club champions St Gall’s, whose brother CJ is also out for the summer because of a hip operation.
Better news for Liam Bradley’s team is Michael McCann, who missed the league campaign with a serious back injury, has recovered and is named at centrefield.
Despite the disappointment of relegation, Antrim will be inspired by the memory of beating Sunday’s opponents at the same venue two years ago. The home side, however, under the management of Jim McGuinness, look in better shape this time having won the Division Two title and secured promotion.
When the sides met in the league last month Antrim were well beaten but in a season beset by injury problems were probably at their weakest for that particular match.
Donegal won’t name their side until closer to Sunday.
ANTRIM(SFC v Donegal): S O'Neill; K O'Boyle, R Johnston, C Brady; T Scullion, J Crozier, A Healy; M McCann, A Gallagher; C Murray, T McCann, M Sweeney; P Cunningham, B Herron, K Niblock.
LAOIS(SHC v Antrim): P Mullaney; JA Delaney, B Campion, B Stapleton; J Fitzpatrick, M Whelan, B Galvin; J Walsh, S Burke; B Dunne, G Reddin, W Hyland; O Holohan, N Foyle, J Brophy.
