Former Limerick inter-county hurler Shane Dowling does not believe that the controversy surrounding Kyle Hayes will have any negative impact on the county's chase for a fifth consecutive All-Ireland title.
On Wednesday, Hayes was given a two-year suspended prison sentence after being convicted last December of two counts of violent disorder.
The 25-year-old was also ordered to pay €10,000 in compensation to a man who suffered serious facial injuries during incidents inside and outside a Limerick nightclub in 2019.
Limerick manager John Kiely acted as a character witness for Hayes at his first sentencing hearing in January and moves to reintegrate the player into the Limerick set-up are already well underway.
Hayes started at wing-back for Limerick against Dublin at Croke Park last month, but is currently recovering from an ankle issue and not believed to be in the reckoning for their squad to face Kilkenny this weekend.
Dowling, a former team-mate of Hayes with Limerick, was speaking on the RTÉ GAA podcast and is confident that the court case and the judge’s ruling will have little impact on their season.
"To be very honest with you, Kyle is a good friend of mine and I don’t feel it’s right to go into much detail and this is absolutely none of my business," he said.
"What I will say is that the decision was made yesterday, John has backed him up 100%, we all saw that a couple of weeks ago and I don’t see anything changing on that front now or in the future."
Dowling feels that Limerick are too experienced to let noise from outside their camp affect them or their performances and that the backroom staff with the county are well equipped to deal with whatever comes their way.
"I think if this was year one or even year two, I’d buy that and it’d be a huge concern," he said. "I can tell you now for a fact that it will have and has had, no impact on what Limerick want to do going forward.
"They’re too experienced, they have such a good management team.
"Obviously if [former Limerick sports psychologist] Caroline Currid was there, she would have such a huge role to play. She’s not there now, Joe O’Connor has taken the reigns for that. Joe is very solid guy, I know him from a different capacity when he was previously there in S&C or sports performance.
"I’ve not doubt that other people on the outside will be hoping that it will have an impact internally there and that they may be able to gain a couple of per cent on it, but sadly for other counties, I don’t see it having any impact whatsoever."
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