A number of last year’s Offaly All-Ireland U20 heroes have been drafted into John Maughan's senior squad ahead of Saturday's O'Byrne Cup opener against Dublin.

Morgan Tynan (Ballinagar), Cathal Flynn (Ferbane), Kieran Dolan (Shamrocks), John Furlong (Tullamore), Cormac Egan (Tullamore) and Aaron Brazil (Shannonbridge) join fellow All-Ireland winners Cathal Donoghue (Kilcormac/Killoughey), Jack Byrant (Shamrocks) and Rory Egan (Edenderry) who were part of the senior panel last year, but didn’t get any game-time.

In addition, two other Tullamore young guns, Diarmuid Egan and Luke Egan, have been called up, while there’s a recall for Gerry Spollen after he played a starring role for Durrow in their surprise run to the county SFC semi-finals. There are no retirements.

Unfortunately for the Offaly manager, a combination of Covid and injuries means he won’t have anything close to a fully-fit squad to pick from for the upcoming games, with veteran Niall McNamee, Conor McNamee, Declan Hogan, David Dempsey and the aforementioned Spollen among those currently sidelined. Cian Johnson remains out of the picture for now as he continues to battle a Gilmore’s groin issue.

“While playing Dublin is always a mouth-watering prospect, the build-up to Saturday’s game and the new season has been sadly tainted by Covid,” the Mayo man tells this week's Offaly Topic.

“We trained without eight players last Sunday morning due to Covid cases and close contacts, and we could be down more by Saturday. That’s the uncertainty of it. Covid is rampant at the moment, but there isn’t a football camp in the country that hasn’t been affected by it. It is what it is and we should have sufficient numbers to get by.”

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