Wexford’s Jack Guiney dropped from panel ahead of Kilkenny trip

Wexford hurler Jack Guiney has been dropped from the county's senior hurling panel nine days ahead of their Leinster semi-final against Kilkenny.

Manager Liam Dunne first dropped the 22-year-old, one of his marquee forwards, last Wednesday before confirming the decision on Friday night, following a disciplinary breach the previous weekend.

While there are no set discipline rules or guidelines within the panel, players are expected to “set their own standards” and Guiney angered others in the set-up when caught on a night out following the team’s championship win over Westmeath.

Guiney is one of the team’s most valuable assets and lined out at wing forward in their 1-24 to 1-16 win over Westmeath nine days ago. He scored a total of 2-26 in his five league outings earlier this season.

Yet despite the challenge of the All-Ireland champions in Nowlan Park looming, Guiney will play no part on Sunday afternoon.

It remains unclear whether the Wexford management will be open to a possible return for Guiney following the Kilkenny game.

Elsewhere, Sligo corner forward Stephen Coen has also been dropped from their panel for disciplinary reasons ahead of the county's Connacht semi-final against Roscommon.

Coen had missed much of the league with a hamstring complaint but would have been expected to play some part in their championship opener at Markievicz Park.

He featured in all of the team’s championship games last summer, scoring 1-1 from corner forward in the qualifier defeat to Cork last July.

Bar Coen's departure, believed to have been decided in the past fortnight, manager Niall Carew has almost a full bill of health available to him for the visit of Roscommon on Saturday.

“We’re in great shape,” explained Carew who did not want to be drawn on developments regarding Coen. “We’ll have no excuses, we are where we want to be. It has been a big gap in terms of waiting for a championship game but there’s no excuses as we’ve known that since October.

“Roscommon are hot favourites, in their heads they’re way ahead of us. But we’re itching to get started.”

Sligo come into the game minus only their two long term absentees; cruciate victim Charlie Harrison and Johnny Martyn who has had ankle and heart concerns this year.

While the duo are considerable losses to the Sligo defence, Carew is quietly confident that his attack can cause enough damage to pull off an upset against the 2015 Division Two champions.

“The London game will give them an advantage, we haven’t played since the last league game against Armagh on April 5th” said Carew. “They’re a Division One team now, talking about winning All-Irelands. We’re a long way from that.

“But we’re looking forward to it.”