WITH JUST ONE substitute appearance to his name in the league this year, Michael Fennelly is keen to get some hurling under his belt again.

Fennelly — who was named Hurler of the Year in 2011 — spent his winter in Australia with Aussie Rules side the Sydney Swans where he began work on rehabbing the ankle injury he picked up last year.

He is wary that’s it’s an injury that could come back to haunt him again though.

“[The ankle is] not too bad. It’s coming on well, I’m still minding it, still rehabbing it.

“It’s still not hit the green line yet and it’s normally around April time that I do injuries to my ankle so hopefully I can get past it and drive on.”

The 29-year old has plenty of reason to worry after two serious injuries in as many years.

“Yeah, two years in a row, two serious ankle injuries that took me out for three or four months. Even last year I had to stop for the club as well.

“It’s a different one than [the first injury], I just went completely over it then. I really did a bad job. That really finished off the whole year.

“I came back for a bit of championship against Cork but there were so many problems there.

“Things were only showing up a few weeks afterwards and then something else would show up so it made the whole thing more complicated but hopefully I’m the right side of it.”

Thankfully, the Ballyhale Shamrocks clubman does have a timeline for his recovery:

“I’d be hoping for some time in the next few weeks now if I could stay injury free. I’m not too far off now.

“I’ve been getting back into full training the last two weeks but I was sick there for a week which held me back.”

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