GRAHAM CANTY remains an injury doubt for Cork ahead of next Sunday's All-Ireland football semi-final against champions Kerry.

The team captain had to retire during the Munster final win over the same opponents last month and though the original fear was that he had injured a cruciate ligament team manager Conor Counihan was more optimistic when a strain to the medial ligament was diagnosed as the problem.

"We're working away on the two lads," said Counihan referring to Canty and centrefielder Nicholas Murphy, who is nursing a hamstring injury. Both missed the quarter-final victory over Kildare the weekend before last.

"I'd have been more hopeful of Graham making this match previously," the Cork manager added. "Two weeks ago there didn't seem any problem but I'm not as optimistic at this stage. Nicholas is about 50-50."

The team for Sunday is due to be named tonight and Counihan says he will stick by that timetable. "We're taking medical advice on this and bearing that in mind will name the team based on those opinions. Leaving vacancies is too unsettling."

If Canty is forced out by injury it will be a sizeable setback for the team even if they managed to complete a remarkable comeback in Páirc Uí­ Chaoimh during the Munster final after trailing by eight points at half-time in his and Murphy's absence.

The player is unlucky and two years ago also injured his knee in the Munster final against Kerry but on that occasion the damage was to the cruciate and Canty was unable to play again that season, missing among other matches the All-Ireland semi-final, also against Kerry.

Playing nominally as a wing forward his role last month was to act as cover for the defence although he won an All Star last year playing at full back.

Murphy has played well in the past against Kerry's centrefield although his best performances against Darragh Ó Sé have been in Munster rather than Croke Park.

This is Counihan's first exposure to what has become a regular feature of Cork's summer: following up a provincial meeting with their neighbours with a rematch at All-Ireland semi-final stage. To date this decade the counties have met three times in the semi-finals and once in the final, last year. On each occasion Cork lost heavily with the tightest of the margins, six points, coming in 2006.

• Eamonn O'Brien has emerged as the favourite to become the new Meath senior football team manager in succession to Colm Coyle who quit the position following the All-Ireland qualifiers defeat to Limerick last month.

Nominations for the vacancy closed at the weekend and though the county board decided not to announce the names of the candidates, O'Brien, one of Seán Boylan's selectors for the All-Ireland successes in 1996 and '99, is believed to be the number one choice of the interview board. The former Walterstown and Meath forward is the manager of local senior side Rathkenny, having guided them to an intermediate championship two years ago.

Among the nominations is Joe Kernan, but the former Armagh boss has ruled himself out.