Horan ‘hopeful’ on Cillian O’Connor injury

Horan ‘hopeful’ on Cillian


Rob Murphy

MAYO manager James Horan says he is “hopeful” that Cillian O’Connor’s season isn’t over following his shoulder injury last week, but isn’t prepared to put a time-frame on the player’s return to ‘contact’ training or match action.
Speaking to The Mayo News yesterday (Monday) following Mayo’s facile victory over Cavan in a senior football challenge in Ballina, Horan said that O’Connor’s recovery would be “assessed each week” and stressed that “there was no time-frame” on his return.
The Mayo News understands that the 21 year-old faces at least eight weeks on the sidelines in an effort to repair the damage caused in a recent club game for Ballintubber.
O’Connor injured the same shoulder last October and was out of action for almost six months as a result.
He will definitely miss Mayo’s Connacht SFC semi-final against Roscommon on Sunday week next, June 16, and would also be absent for the provincial final, were Mayo to get there, on July 21.
“We’d be hopeful on Cillian, we got the results of a scan and the situation as it stands is that the injury has to be assessed each week. We have no time frame on his return as a result,” explained James Horan yesterday.
“I think there is every reason to be hopeful that he’ll make it back at some stage and there is no reason to suggest otherwise. “We’ll be monitoring it closely but we can’t say anymore than that. In terms of contact and [playing] club football, we can’t say anything on that until we know more.”
Barry Moran, Jason Doherty, Chris Barrett, Michael Conroy and Brian Gallagher were among the players who missed yesterday’s challenge game due to their respective injuries while Ger Cafferkey and Alan Dillon were both ‘rested’ according to Horan.
“Barry and Jason are close to returning, there are a few players in that category, they weren’t just ready yet,” said the Mayo manager. “Evan Regan is back and had a good run-out today.
“Ger Cafferkey and Alan Dillon were rested today, we just wanted to take a look at some of our other options.”
On a positive note, Mayo captain Andy Moran played for nearly an hour and scored two goals.