By John Harrington

Laois manager John Sugrue says Daniel O’Reilly is making a good recovery from the fractured skull he suffered last April.

Laois footballer O’Reilly suffered the serious head injury after an assault in Carlow last month.

“He’s laid up for a long time now which is very tough on him,” said Sugrue today at the launch of the Leinster Senior Football Championship.

“He's an energetic guy and that's unfortunate for him. But he's going to stay with us for the year.

“Danny's back, he's in good form, he's hopefully going back to work shortly. He's a great fella, he's a great lad to have around the place.

“He's a really bright and enthusiastic young fella with bundles of energy. We'll try and get him using his energy in a physical sense again in the short-term future.”

Apart from O’Reilly’s absence, Laois also have a number of other injury concerns ahead of their Leinster SFC quarter-final against Wexford on May 12.

“Eoin Lowry has got a significant ankle injury from a club game,” said Sugrue.

“Evan O'Carroll has got a hamstring injury so he looks fairly certain to miss the Wexford tie. We're down a few. From the start of the year we made a kind of concerted effort to really try to have cover for every position.

“We have fellas able to play every position so we'll make no excuses for it. If on championship day we're beaten by Wexford, then Wexford will be the better team. We're not going to be crying about who we're missing at all.”

Sugrue also confirmed today that Colm Murphy and Robbie Piggott are no longer part of the Laois panel because they’ve chosen to travel abroad for the summer.