There’s an interview with Conor Mortimer in the Mayo News where he says that he’s aiming to return to action at the end of May.  Shrule/Glencorrib are due to face Burrishoole in the first round of the club championship in the last weekend in May and, naturally enough, Mort (along with all the other Morts) wants to be back in the thick of things for that one.

The one thing that jumped out at me from the interview is the bit where he says that this type of injury “is supposed to take eight weeks but I’m going to be pushing to be back sooner”.  The thing about broken bones is that if they usually take eight weeks to heal, then you can expect them to take eight weeks to heal, Shrule/Glencorrib v Burrishoole notwithstanding.  The other thing – which I remember from being in this situation a quarter of a century (yikes!) back – is that your hand atrophies to an extent while it’s encased in plaster (it’s also a bitch trying to play pool, as I vaguely recall) and it takes a good few weeks to build the strength back up again.  I still think, club championship or no club championship, that Mort might be struggling to be 100% for the Connacht semi-final on 20th June.

There’s obviously a whole load more in the Mayo News that you may have got to already (work is a tad all-consuming at present and I’m being all-consumed by it so I hadn’t time to do this yesterday).  Here it is in all its glory: the U21 match report, the U21 after-match quotes, Sean Rice’s analysis and the stuff on the announcement of the championship panel, comprising two pieces from Mike Finnerty (this one and this one).  There’s also an article about Pearse Hanley, who, like Mort, is out injured at the minute and who is now into the final year of his rookie contract Down Under.  I know Hogan Stand had a bit the other day about Pearse which raised the titillating prospect of his returning to his native shores later this year should he fail to get a new contract in Australia but the Mayo News article shows clearly that, for now at least, his intention is to stay out there for as long as he can.  You can’t fault the lad for doing all he can to make a go of it out there.

Finally, the Mayo News is running a poll on who should be our captain for the 2009 championship (why didn’t I think of doing that?).   Trevor Mortimer is currently well out in front in this one, with 41% of all votes, while last year’s captain, Ronan McGarritty, trails in behind Alan Dillon and Peadar Gardiner (in that order) attracting just under 6% of the vote.

That’s all for now.  What – more work?  Oh bugger.