Gardiner breaks jaw

Gardiner breaks jaw

FOOTBALL NEWS

Daniel Carey

MAYO vice-captain Peadar Gardiner has been ruled out of the rest of the National Football League campaign after sustaining a broken jaw last Sunday. The Crossmolina man will have an operation today (Tuesday) after an accidental clash with Knockmore’s John Brogan in a Senior Football League match.

Gardiner (pictured) is the most serious of Mayo’s injury worries ahead of next weekend’s game with Kildare, but John O’Mahony will also be keeping an eye on quite a few other players over the coming days. Trevor Mortimer strained a hamstring playing for Shrule/Glencorrib against Claremorris, while Billy Joe Padden is due to have an MRI scan tomorrow (Wednesday) as the ankle injury which caused him to miss the Kerry game has not yet cleared up.

Knockmore’s Aidan Kilcoyne is still out with a shoulder injury, while Garrymore’s Enda Varley has a hamstring problem. Neither played any part in club games at the weekend.

Liam O’Malley picked up a knee injury in Burrishoole’s game against Westport on St Patrick’s Day and didn’t train last week, but he played all 60 minutes in yesterday’s victory over Belmullet.

Mickey Mullins, who hurt his hamstring against Laois, ‘might be free to have some involvement’ in Newbridge, according to O’Mahony. Chris Barrett had recovered sufficiently from a groin injury to play a full part in Mayo’s U-21 victory over Leitrim on Saturday, and should also be available for selection.

“Peadar is out for the rest of the league, which is disappointing for him and disappointing for us, because he was filling in a different role this year for us and he was doing very well in it,” John O’Mahony told The Mayo News yesterday (Monday). “He was making that role his own really in many respects … but … he’ll just have to get on with his rehab now and [we’ll] get him back as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we have to fight the battles we have to fight.”

The first of those ‘battles’ comes next Sunday in Newbridge, and O’Mahony expects Kildare to be ‘gung-ho’ after their U-21s beat Dublin at the weekend. Both sides are on three points after four games, but the manager believes that seven points will be required for survival.

“We’ll be aiming to win every game, but certainly as a minimum, we would probably need four out of the six points to survive,” he said. “We’ll be relying on just getting a performance and seeing where that takes us. Hopefully we can give an honest performance again, as we have done in all our games, and that’ll give us a platform. It would be great to be able to take something home from Newbridge, and that’s what we’ll be aiming to.”

Mayo had a comprehensive victory over Louth on Saturday in what O’Mahony described as ‘a good workout’. With the U-21s and injured players unavailable, and Keith Higgins preparing for last Sunday’s hurling match against Kerry, it was ‘an opportunity to give games to people who hadn’t got them for a while’, according to the Ballaghaderreen clubman.

Kieran McDonald scored five points for Crossmolina on Sunday, and O’Mahony confirmed that McDonald, Ger Brady and James Nallen would be ‘invited in’ for a trial game shortly.

“We’re forward-planning our championship panel,” he said. “Because once we get the league out of the way, the panel [will be] closed off. We’ve given a lot of the veteran lads good breathing space, but we do need to have a decision made.”