'I want to put the last six months behind me and move on' says Limerick hurling star Darragh O'Donovan

LIMERICK's star midfielder Darragh O'Donovan has stated that he wants "to put the last six months" behind him and move on saying that the spell on the sideline was a "draining period" for him.

The Oola native has been out since March with a calf injury which he picked up at training, two days before he was due to start against Tipperary in the league.

The niggle proved to be harder to fix than first anticipated with Darragh missing the opening two rounds of the Munster championship against Clare and Tipp. He subsequently missed the rest of the Munster hurling championship including the final against Clare, where he was named as number 26 but was not brought on. 

O'Donovan did feature in the All-Ireland Championship semi-final against Cork in Croke Park, coming on as a substitute after 53 minutes replacing William O'Donoghue. 

As club hurling championship action gets underway Darragh has set his sights firmly on having an injury free run with his club while also aiming for sliverware at the end of the season.

Speaking at the launch of the senior hurling club championship he went on to say: "I just want to put all the injuries worries behind me now and hopefully have no niggles during the club season and drive on now and just enjoy my hurling again. Look hopefully the club can make a bit of progress on where we ended up last year and take it one step further."

After Limerick's drive for five was halted by Cork in the semi-final of the All-Ireland championship the Limerick county stars had more time to spend with their clubs ahead of the championship starting, something that hasn't happened in years due to the county's success. 

This has allowed a smooth transition for county stars to rejoin their club and get a good block of training in before the opening round of action. 

Darragh spoke about being back with Doon a few weeks earlier than planed saying: "We have had a good few weeks together to prepare now for our first game against Kilmallock. We have been so blessed and so lucky with Limerick winning All-Ireland's that clubs usually didn't have that preparation time with the county players so we have definitely used that time to our advantage and hopefully it pays off."

And it most certainly paid off for Doon who were one-point victors over Kilmallock in a nail-biting opening round championship fixture where Darragh made the most of his return from injury starting in midfield alongside Barry Murphy.