Clare captain Stephen Kelly has been ruled out of their final Oscar Traynor group game against Roscommon this weekend.
Kelly has been out of action for the past two weeks. The Newmarket Celtic defender picked up a knock in FAI Junior Cup action when he was involved in a rough collision with an opposing member of the Aungier Celtic team.
Tulla Utd’s Darragh Corry is unavailable for the clash and has yet to feature for the county in this season’s campaign due to injury. Colin Smyth is rated as “fifty-fifty” for the tie, he did damage to his ankle in Clare’s win over Mayo while he lasted forty five minutes last weekend as Avenue Utd surprised his former club Newmarket Celtic in the Munster Junior Cup.
Question marks remain over the fitness of attacking duo Eoin Hayes and David McCarthy. Hayes is having some trouble with an ongoing hip problem while McCarthy is recovering from the flu and hasn’t trained in the past fortnight.
Clare manager Donie Garrihy told The Clare Herald that the side’s physio’s are confident Hayes will be fit enough to lead the Banner attack. With regards to Eoin’s clubmates Stephen Kelly and David McCarthy, Garrihy says the challenge on Kelly two weeks ago could have been prevented while he feels McCarthy will do his very best to be right for Sunday.
“I love Stephen to bits as a player, he’s a warrior, he’s an athlete, he’s an international footballer, he’s our county captain, he’s hugely important to Newmarket Celtic, he’s vastly experienced. Are we not going to miss him on Sunday? Ask Mike O’Malley that, look at what happened last Sunday when Stephen wasn’t playing, they missed him unbelievably and he’s a huge part of our team as he was last year and the year before that, I can’t flag just how important our county captain is to us”.
“David McCarthy didn’t play last Sunday for Newmarket against Avenue, he had the flu and he had a knock from the Aungier Celtic the previous weekend, he hasn’t trained this week but today he’s a lot better and if David can play for his county David will play for his county because he’s all about his county and his football”.
Frank Healy Park is the venue for Sunday’s game which kicks off at 2pm.