Joe Canning has given no date to his return to hurling, insisting it will be a case of when he feels his body is once again ready to compete.
It's almost five months since Canning underwent an operation on a hamstring injury which forced him out of Galway's All-Ireland hurling semi-final clash with Tipperary last summer.
The injury, severe as it was, hasn't hampered Canning's involvement in the game too much. The 28-year-old missed club games during his injury lay-off but has been hit with injury during the off-season.
"I'm back running and things like that, which isn't too bad," he told Darren Cleary. "I'm doing a lot of straight line stuff. It should be seven or eight months altogether, but hopefully I'll be back a little bit sooner. There's no date at the end of it, we're kind of playing it week by week.
"We'll just how he body is and how the leg is. If I'm good to go before the seven or eight months are up, great. If not then so be it. If it's nine or 10 months, then that's what it has to be. We'll go week on week and give no fixed date yet."
Canning lies on the pitch after picking up a hamstring injury against Tipperary last August. Image: ©INPHO/Cathal Noonan
Canning explained that his initial reaction to injury wasn't too bad and that he felt he would be able to carry himself through the game.
"I felt something alright, but when you're in the middle of it you have this mindset that it'll be OK and that you'll get up. When the doctor tested it, there was no power in it altogether. I knew then it wasn't good.
"I walked off the pitch and it wasn't too bad and I still thought if we were back for the Tipperary game that I'd be back for the All-Ireland one way or another.
"I didn't realise until a few days later when I got the scan how severe it was. I think it was just adrenaline I was running on... a few hours later I couldn't sit down on it."
The rehabilitation, he admits, has gone well so far, but that the main focus is building up his fitness rather than practicing with any equipment.
"Unfortunately the hurl wasn't with it, so it's just been a lot of long running and just trying to get the fitness back up more so than anything else. Trying to build up the muscle in the hamstrings, the quads and the glutes which hasn't been active for the last number of months.
"I've had to get very little thing working again and try to get them as strong as possible."
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