Brian Hogan has stressed his concern for the welfare of club players due to the increased demand for them.
Speaking to KCLR after his side’s defeat of Tullaroan in their opening game of this year’s St Canice’s Credit Union Kilkenny Senior Hurling League, O’Loughlin Gaels manager Hogan said that the quick turnaround of fixtures could lead to more injuries.
See also: Opening weekend sees big wins for Glenmore, Mullinavat, Dicksboro
“You’re waiting all year for the club matches to come around, unfortunately, we have three of them in three weeks. We have the Boro match in five days. It’s ridiculous from my perspective. One of these boys could pick up an injury, and if it’s severe enough, he could miss the league.”
“You’re talking about player welfare, that was a good match today. The boys naturally would be stiff and sore. We had the intermediates out yesterday and there are one or two lads that were kind of a double jobbing there as well.”
“Look, It is what it is with the current system with the inter-county and that. You want to kind of give enough oxygen to the inter-county and we’ve spoken about that in terms of promoting the game but equally at the club level. “
O’Loughlins Ruaidhri Galway was thrown straight into the fire on his debut by marking Shane Walsh from Tullaroan. However, his manager Hogan was highly impressed by him come to the final whistle;
“You can’t bate breeding! There is plenty of it in that lad. He is as cool as a cucumber. It wouldn’t phase him, he wouldn’t give a toss who he was marking. You see it in training.”
“In fairness, he is only out of minor, he is a big unit. He is not afraid to mix it. Obviously, we had one or two lads missing, he got his chance and he did extremely well.
O’Loughlin’s next game sees them take on Dicksboro this Friday night at 7 o’clock and we’ll have live commentary of that city derby on KCLR.
Listen back to the full interview below on Scoreline Extra:
