Cheddar and Laois paying the price of injury crux

Laois hurling manager Cheddar Plunkett has a major injury crisis on his hands as Laois look to stay in division 1B of the National hurling league.

He saw his side fall to a 13 point defeat at the hands of Clare despite putting in a very competitive opening 35 minutes.
“We are disappointed. We thought we put ourselves in a good position at half time.

“We knew coming in that we were missing a lot of players. To be missing Charlie (Dwyer) Podge (Delaney) and Ryan (Mullaney) on top of the players that we were missing already at this level of competition is just a little bit too much.
“I thought we were very competitive in the first half and really well set up.

“For the first 15 minutes of the second half, we seemed to go out of the game. They just stepped up really and pulled away from us. They dominated the first 15 minutes of the second half and that really won the game for them. We steadied ourselves in the last 15 minutes but the gap was too big at that stage.

Mark Kavanagh, Stephen Maher, Willie Dunphy, John Lennon, Ronan Broderick, Eric Killeen, Eanna Lyons, Cha Dwyer, Ryan Mullaney and Podge Delaney are all on the injured list and Plunkett insisted that any team would suffer the loss of so many players.

“If you are missing seven or eight of your team, you take that out of Limerick or Galway and they are different teams as well.
“We are missing a lot of experienced players and at that level, hardness is very hard to replace. Our priority here is to get players back as quickly as we can. That is not going to be easy."

When asked about the physicality of the team and that perhaps Clare had the edge on the physical stakes, Plunkett explained that their focus has been on other facets of their preparations.

“We have been concentrating on fitness really. Our fitness levels at the start of the year were a long way away from what I would have expected an Inter County team to be so we have concentrated a lot on athletic fitness rather than the strength but nonetheless you shouldn't be shoved off the ball. You cannot fix seven or eight things in three or four weeks.

“Conditioning people will tell you that is a three year programme for conditioning. We have some work ahead of us in that regard. They are the challenges ahead of us here but we will dig deep to stay in this division. Hopefully we will get experienced, hard edged players back. There is great spirit in the team and we need to keep that as well."

Cha Dwyer is the latest player to join the growing injury list and it is unlikely that he will be fit for the Kilkenny game in two weeks time.

“I can't go into the personal details of it but it needs a scan and it is probably weeks, it could be a while.
“It would be great to have the week break with it helping us to get players back but that is not going to happen but we will recharge the batteries for Kilkenny in Nowlan Park. Six days later then against Antrim up in Corrigan Park."