Injury concerns for Seasiders

Date Published: 06-Nov-2012

Dara Bradley

Galway senior football champions, Salthill/Knocknacarra have a couple of injury concerns ahead of this weekend’s AIB Connacht club semi-final clash with the Roscommon kingpins, St Brigid’s, at Pearse Stadium on Sunday (2.30pm).

Manager Gerry Hughes told Sentinel Sport yesterday that two key players from the county final win over Tuam Stars nearly a month ago, Ruaidhri McTiernan and Gary Cox, are undergoing intense treatment this week ahead of the penultimate round of the provincial series.

Corner back McTiernan, a key figure in the Salthill defence which hasn’t conceded a championship goal so far this season, picked up a foot injury in a league encounter the week after the county final.

Midfielder Cox, a real work-horse of the side, is nursing a back injury.

Hughes said the management team, which includes Carl Donlon and Tadhg and Padraig Begley, will wait until later in the week before assessing whether the duo is available for selection.

“We’ve a couple of injury concerns,” said Hughes. “They are two key players. We have to wait ‘til later in the week to see how they get on.”

Since the euphoria of winning their third ever county title on the first Sunday of October, Salthill – fielding a depleted team – were relegated the following week to Division 1B of the league after a campaign in which they lost a number of games by just a point.

Hughes said that defeat was “very disappointing” but the city club has put it, and the county final win, behind them as Salthill aim to halt the Kiltoom outfit’s march for a third provincial title in a row.

“We were delighted to win the county final, we enjoyed the celebrations but we didn’t go overboard. It’s certainly out of our system, we’re into a new competition now and we always try to prepare the best that we can and that’s what we’ve done and we’re ready to give it a rattle,” said Hughes.

St Brigid’s, backboned by quality players like Peter Domican, Karol Mannion, Garvan Dolan, Senan Kilbride, Ian Kilbride and Frankie Dolan, have beaten Galway opposition twice in the past two years in the final of the provincial series.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.