Canty confident of being fit

CORK FOOTBALL:CORK CAPTAIN Graham Canty returned to full training last night and expressed confidence that he would be available for selection for next week's All-Ireland football final against Down.

“I’m nearly at full training,” he said at yesterday’s media conference just before the team’s training session, “and hoping to be available for selection. I’ll take a full part tonight and at the weekend.”

Canty injured his hamstring in the quarter-final win over Roscommon and had to retire at half-time in the semi-final defeat of Dublin. Having him fully fit for the final is the major anxiety in the county with nine days to go to the final.

Asked about the other injury concerns over Fintan Goold and veteran Anthony Lynch, manager Conor Counihan had mixed news.

“We’re optimistic enough that Fintan will be available. Anthony is a doubt at this stage, though we’ll know more later on in the week. He’s done some training, but he’s aggravated a calf injury so we won’t know the full extent of that just yet.”

Counihan has appeared this year not to start his strongest team and try instead to make sure that it is on the field for the closing stages of matches. He said yesterday that the line-up won’t be finalised until after this coming weekend.

“There’s four other heads go into that as well as mine,” he said when asked had he the team selected. “Obviously we’re pretty clear in where we’re going, but we’ll get through the weekend and play a bit of a match on Saturday evening and see how things go.

“Generally speaking, you leave the opposition worry about you rather than us worrying about them, but at some times you might make special provision for certain teams and certain individuals.”