Stephen Bennett will miss Waterford's entire Allianz Hurling League campaign in 2016 as he is due to have hip surgery later this week.

The 20-year-old already underwent a double hip operation last year and is facing up to six months on the sidelines this time around. 

"Stephen Bennett is certain to be out until late April or early May, so there's no way that he will be involved with Waterford during the course of the league," Waterford selector Dan Shanahan explained to the Irish Examiner.

"So he won't be available to us until the Munster championship.

"The previous hip operations that Stephen had didn't work out as well as had been hoped, so that is why he is having the additional surgery on both of his hips. Following the previous operations he was out for about eight to 10 weeks, but on this occasion the recovery period will be much longer because of the importance to get everything right and for Stephen not to have any further problems with his hips.

"He'll probably be on crutches for two to three weeks and it will be a long time after that before he will be able to start doing a bit of light training.

"It's obviously a very young age for a player to have so many problems with his hip so hopefully Stephen won't experience any more problems once he's had the latest two operations."

Pauric Mahony will also miss next year's Allianz League defence as he continues his recovery from the knee injury that ruled him out of this year's championship.

"Pauric Mahony certainly won't be back for the start of the league as he has only recently begun to do a bit of light jogging," Shanahan continued.

"So our focus will be to have him ready for next year's championship."

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