Keenan concern for Fitzer
ACCUSTOMED to donning their red and white for a late January O'byrne Cup final date in recent seasons, Paddy Keenan's hamstring will now be the main focus of attention for Louth fans over the next fortnight.
The St Patrick's clubman felt an ominous 'twinge' after just four minutes of the Reds' 2-10 to 1-9 challenge victory over Crossmaglen Rangers in Oliver Plunkett Park on Sunday afternoon and wisely opted not to risk any further damage.
Already without Shane Lennon, Mark Brennan and Sean Connor for the Allianz NFL Division 2 opener against Westmeath on Sunday week (February 5th), Peter Fitzpatrick is hopeful his star man will mend on time.
'Paddy will take this week off completely. We have a challenge match against Roscommon in Haggardstown on Saturday evening (5pm) and he won't play in that either. It was just a twinge, but he was right to come off straight away and we have to be careful because he had a similar injury in 2010 and missed a good few league games.'
The outlook on Shane Lennon's osteitis pubis injury isn't quite so hopeful as the Kilkerley Emmets star has been ordered to rest for a month before starting a rehab programme that is likely to sideline him for an additional 4-6 weeks, effectively ruling him out of the National League.
Mark Brennan - currently returning from the same injury - will be away for the Westmeath clash, while Andy Mcdonnell returns from holiday on the Friday before the game.
However, Fitzpatrick did get a chance to run the rule over a host of possible replacements last weekend and one man to take his chance was Darren Clarke, who plundered a whopping 2-7 in the Crossmaglen victory. 'Darren was very sharp and he's only coming back from injury too and I felt Jim Mceneaney did well when he came in for Paddy. But the most important thing was that we gave 35 lads a good run out and we mixed the teams up pretty well I felt. We still have two more weeks to prepare, so hopefully we're starting to turn the corner from the Meath game.'
And there was more good news for the Reds chief as he confirmed that Mick Fanning returned to the country yesterday (Tuesday) with Brian White due back on the weekend of the Westmeath game. LOUTH (V CROSSMAGLEN): Duane Crosbie; Jackie Agnew, Conor Mcguinness, Jamie Carr; Stephen Fitzpatrick, Declan Byrne, Liam Shevlin; Paddy Keenan, Michael Rogers; Cathal Bellew, Mark Brennan, Jason Clarke; Darren Clarke 2-7, Derek Maguire, Ronan Holcroft 0-1. Subs: Neil Gallagher for D Crosbie, Jim Mceneaney 0-2 for P Keenan, David Collier for R Holcroft.
