Time for reset as Kilkenny eye business end of league

Kilkenny have reached the halfway mark of their Allianz Hurling League campaign with plenty of positive signs thus far.

Derek Lyng’s men have won two of their three games in the league and sit joint top of the table alongside Tipperary and Galway but their fate will largely be determined in the games to come.

In saying that, the Cats have already picked up full points on the road at two venues they have previously struggled in and while the Galway result was disappointing, there is now time to take stock with their only weekend off over the course of the campaign in the rear view mirror.

Kilkenny boss Derek Lyng welcomed the break as his team have picked up a couple injuries in recent weeks including the likes of Zach Bay Hammond and Fionan Mackessy.

“Next weekend is welcome and it’s a chance for us to regroup and see where we are at and see who needs a rest.

“Lads just need to catch up as well for the games after the break as we’ve three on the bounce and it’s an intense enough period.

“We’ve already played three games so it’ll be good to get everybody back in and we’ll need to lift ourselves again for the rest of the league.”

Unlike in previous seasons, the Cats have also had to deal with a huge number of the squad involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup which reached it's conclusion last Saturday.

The end of the competition will come as some relief to Lyng as there is still a number of experienced players to come back into the fold including the likes of newly appointed captain John Donnelly, TJ Reid, Richie Reid and Eoin Murphy while Adrian Mullen and Tommy Walsh are still recovering from knocks they picked up in the pre-season games.

“It’s hard to know when we will have the lads back and we are just taking it on a week to week basis but we’d be hopeful of having them back for either the Cork and Limerick games.

“It’s too early to say really though as we’ll just have to wait and see how they get on in training over the next week or so.

“We’d like to have them back as soon as possible but we don’t want to rush any of them back in case they break down again with injury before the championship in April.

“We just have to be careful with lads that have had niggles before so we are very mindful of that,” Lyng added when asked about the availability of his absent experienced stars.

With a three week block of games against Limerick (home), Cork (away) and Tipperary (home) all occurring on successive weekends - the Noresiders won’t have their bye week until the very last round - time is running out for some players to get game-time ahead of the Championship.

The former All-Ireland winning player and selector knows they need to be patient with some players, but Lyng is confident they will be back on the field in due course.

“We’re not looking at three or four weeks it’s two to three weeks for all of them,” he said.

“It really comes down to the week leading in.

“They are all progressing well but they need to get a bit of work in before we throw them into a match situation or we run the risk of them breaking down and we are not going to do that.”