Brian Hayes says Rob Downey has yet to get back running but hopes his Cork team-mate will be wearing the blood and bandages jersey again over the coming weeks.
Downey suffered ankle ligament damage in Cork’s Munster senior hurling championship win over Limerick and was not available for last weekend’s victory over Waterford.
Cork are currently dealing with several defensive injuries, with Ciarán Joyce ruled out for the rest of the season with a cruciate knee ligament tear, also suffered in that Limerick match.
It remains to be seen if Downey could be available for the Munster senior hurling final should Cork progress to the decider on June 7th.
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“Like any player he probably wants to play on the big occasions, if he wants to target that himself, but I suppose we have to make sure that we’re there first,” said Hayes. “He’s doing his own rehab there with physios, he’ll be a couple of weeks off yet.
“I don’t think he’s back running yet. We’ll be waiting for Rob to come back and we’ll welcome him back when he’s ready, but it’s next man up until then.”
Cork, who are top of the Munster senior hurling table after winning their opening three games, have a bye weekend coming up before their final group game on May 24th, at home to Clare.
“We’ll get back to training and focus on driving the standards ourselves first, without focusing on Clare too much,” added Hayes. “I think we’ll definitely be looking at that game going forward to qualify for the Munster final.
“I think the Waterford game was a great win to set us up nicely to get us out of Munster and get us into that All-Ireland series, but we’ll be targeting getting back to another Munster final hopefully with the Clare game.”
Hayes was speaking at the announcement that Clean Cut Meals is to become the official GAA/GPA ready meals partner in a new three-year deal
