Donoghue grounds Glynn in Galway for All-Ireland defence

All-Ireland-winning Galway manager Micheál Donoghue has said he told US-based forward Jonathan Glynn that he’d need to live in Ireland this summer to compete in the championship.

Powerful Glynn, who weighs in at nearly 16 stone and is 6ft 4in, flew back and forth from New York last year as Galway successfully navigated the Championship for the first time since 1988.

He didn’t feature at all in the recent league campaign though subsequently returned to play for his club Ardrahan and has rejoined the county panel.

Donoghue said Glynn will now remain in Ireland until the end of the championship, something that appears to have been non-negotiable from the manager’s point of view.

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“It’s probably not an ideal situation where he was going back and forth, we had a chat after the All-Ireland last year, probably that that wouldn’t work again for us,” said Donoghue.

“It’s testament to him that he showed a huge desire in wanting to do that, so we set him a date to come back, we agreed that a long time ago.

“He was working on a programme towards that with Lukasz [Kirszenstein, trainer] until he came back. He’s back and in good shape, he’s back with us now three weeks so he’s with us until the end.”

Meanwhile, Dublin hurling coach Anthony Cunningham has refused to rule out striking an agreement in the future with the county football management to share Con O’Callaghan’s services.

Rejected invitations

Cunningham raised the possibility of doing so last winter and, though it won’t happen this season, the former Galway manager believes it could still be possible in the coming seasons.

“Hopefully, in a year’s time, or two years’ time, or three years’ time, you’d never say no, particularly with a guy as level-headed as Con because he should be able to carry both,” said Cunningham.

Dual talent O’Callaghan is among a group of All-Ireland club hurling medal -winners with Cuala who have rejected invitations to join Pat Gilroy’s Dublin setup.

Seán Moran, David Treacy, Jake Malone and Con’s brother, Cian, have rejoined Dublin though Mark Schutte, Colm Cronin, Oisín Gough, Darragh O’Connell and several more were unavailable for various reasons.

“Pat, in fairness, would have spoken to practically them all,” revealed Cunningham. “There are guys with some niggles and injuries, and Paul Schutte has a long-term injury unfortunately. That [four players] is what we’ve secured from Cuala. They’ve been tremendous champions so for us we’re grateful.”