By John Harrington

Joe Canning hopes to be back hurling with Galway by March.

The 28-year-old has been sidelined since suffering a serious hamstring injury against Tipperary in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final.

He pulled his hamstring off the bone, but is making good progress in his rehabilitation and believes he might be able to return ahead of schedule.

“The specialist said it’s a seven to eight-month thing – I’m five months on Tuesday - so I’m well ahead and I’ll see in the next few weeks how I feel,” says Canning.

“I could be back earlier. It’s not set in stone. Just how the body feels. I'm a little bit ahead, but I'd say it will probably be March by the time I'm fully back."

If Canning does make it back by then it’s a testament to his healing powers, because injuries like the one he suffered is one that has been a career-ender for many sportspeople, including Irish rugby international Paul O’Connell.

"Yeah, I ripped the tendon basically. The muscle is fine. The tendon attaches the muscle to the bone in your arse basically!

“I've a centimetre-and-a-half left on the bone and it retracted down four centimetres, so it's just surgery to reattach that.

“But if it came off the bone, it usually brings a bit of the bone with it. So Paul O'Connell, let's say for instance, would have brought some of the bone and that never really heals.

“So you'd see a lot of rugby guys now retiring from it – it seems to be the one thing, the hamstring/tendon injury."

When Canning suffered the injury against Tipp he had no idea he had done so much damage. It was only when he went for scans that the full extent of the injury was revealed.

“I thought, if we won the match, in my own head, I'd be back for the final."

"I remember thinking, 'F***, I'm after twinging something here.' But then you realise fairly soon that I properly did something.

“I suppose when I got up and tried to walk, I couldn't because I'd no power whatsoever in my hamstring. I couldn't left my leg behind me, so I knew then it was bother.

“I thought – to be honest - I'd just pulled a muscle. I didn't realise … I never even heard of this kind of an injury before.

“So it never came into my head at the time. It wasn't until a few days later, when the physios … they probably weren't going to hit me with it straight away anyway! They thought it might be, and then the scans obviously proved it right."

Galway also lost Adrian Tuohy to injury before half-time in that All-Ireland semi-final, and it’s not fanciful to speculate that if both he and Canning had remained on the field, the westerners would have found a way to win the match.

They didn’t, and instead Tipperary marched on and produced one of the great All-Ireland Final performances by blowing away Kilkenny. Canning was there that day, and admits it was hard not to think about what might have been.

"It was tough, watching it. I wasn't going to come but then I got a ticket the day before the match, to come. I was still in the brace and on crutches after surgery.

"To be straight up about it, it's not the best feeling looking at an All-Ireland when you lose a semi-final, and with a bit of luck you could be there.

“You'd be kind of half-sickened, to be straight up. There's no point in saying any other way. You become very selfish in those kind of situations and you're kind of going, 'F*** it, like, we could have been there, that could be us.'

"It's not feeling sorry for yourself in any way; it's just frustration, I suppose. You'd like to be a part of winning. You see other guys winning so many – Kilkenny winning ten, 12, in the last number of years, and you're kind of going 'Jesus, if I only got one I'd be happy enough’.”

He’s conscious of the fact that his window of opportunity to win one is narrowing.

A new generation of young hurlers has come onto the Galway panel this year, and at the age of 28 Canning is suddenly starting to feel like an elder statesman of the team.

“There's a lot of guys being bedded into the team, a lot of younger guys. I think we finished with four of last year's county minor team the other night. Two guys in the full-forward line – Cian Salmon, Evan Niland, Evan's still doing his Leaving Cert.

“So it's new, it makes me feel old, to be honest, 28, to be looking at these guys, because my nephew was hurling with them last year. It's a funny kind of a start to the year, for me personally, because I'm not involved. But, no, it's exciting too."

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Bord Gáis Energy was yesterday announced as official sponsor of the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship for the next three years. The sponsorship expands the company’s long standing association with the GAA as they also continue to sponsor the Bord Gáis Energy GAA Hurling U-21 All-Ireland Championship and the Bord Gáis Energy GAA Legends Tours at Croke Park.

The new sponsorship allows Bord Gáis Energy to develop even more great GAA rewards for customers all over the country who are members of the Bord Gáis Energy Rewards Club.  This will include direct access to tickets for Senior Hurling Championship matches.