Oliver ruled out of Leinster MHC final

Dublin's minor hurlers have to plan for Sunday's Electric Ireland Leinster MHC final against Kilkenny in Croke Park (2.0) without corner-forward Matthew Oliver.

The Na Fianna lad has been ruled out with a foot injury, while wing-back Paul O'Dea and midfield dynamo Riain McBride are injury concerns for Pat Fanning's side. The Dubs progressed to Sunday's provincial decider thanks to a late winner by sub Eoin O Conghaile against Wexford, having defeated the Cats by 11 points (2-8 to 0-3) in the previous round.

However, Kilkenny emerged via the qualifiers and have subsequently impressed to make this weekend's big clash. 

"I certainly would not mind being in Kilkenny's position", says Dublin manager Pat Fanning. "There are days when everything goes your way and that is what happened when we played against them earlier in the campaign and the opposite applied to Kilkenny, who just couldn't get a bounce of the ball all day. Sometimes matches evolve like that, but we have drummed into the lads from that day that the result was not reflective of the respective abilities of either side. From a motivation side of things, Kilkenny's management will have little difficulty in getting their lads up for Sunday but I'm fairly confident that our lads will be in good shape and won't read anything into what happened eight weeks ago."