Brosnan and McMahon fighting fit for replay

Anyone in Croke Park on St Patrick's Day will recall the sight of Eoin Brosnan and Brian McMahon hobbling off the field at crucial stages of the AIB All-Ireland club football final, and the look of concern written all over the face of Dr Crokes manager Pat O'Shea. Crossmaglen, trailing for most of the second half, inevitably seized the advantage and eventually forced the draw in the dying seconds of injury-time.

Incredibly, both Brosnan and McMahon - two key players in the Crokes team - had sustained identical injuries, and faced the prospect of three-week lay-offs with badly sprained ankles. The problem the replay was set for two weeks later, taking place in Portlaoise this Sunday.

Crokes needed something of a miracle cure to get them right, which resulted in both players visiting the cryotherapy chamber at White's Hotel in Wexford, just two days after the drawn game. Cryotherapy doesn't promise any miracles but it does promise to speed up the healing process by subjecting the injured part to temperatures of minus 110 degrees Celsius.

It's an intense and fairly drastic form of treatment (which this reporter can vouch for having tried it out on its opening last September) but in the case of Brosnan and McMahon it seems to have worked. Both players have made a far quicker recovery than expected and will now feature in the replay, even if that has to be as substitutes.

They endured a total of nine sessions over three days following the drawn game, with the treatment also complemented by some intense physiotherapy.

Cryotherapy involves three chambers: the first chamber, which is minus 10 degrees, effectively introduces the injured player to the cold; the second chamber is minus 60 degrees, which is to help maintain the temperature of the third chamber - a truly chilling minus 110 degrees.

McMahon, who plays centre back, had sustained his injury in the opening minutes of the drawn game and, while lasting 15 minutes, he was clearly in a bad state when eventually retiring early: "When I suffered the injury in the first few minutes I managed to remain on the field for a while but then the swelling in the ankle was so great I could no longer even walk," he explained.

"But after three days of this treatment the swelling was completely gone and the healing process was already greatly advanced. The area around my ankle and that of Eoin was black and blue which meant that the healing was already in a very advanced stage."

Their faith in the treatment was also helped when, during their first visit, they found David Gillick just completing a session. He was trying it out to help recover from the exertions of his gold medal run at the European Indoor championships earlier this month. A couple of days later they also ran into soccer international Kevin Doyle.

Brosnan's injury occurred in the second half, shortly after moving from midfield to centre forward, and he retired after 49 minutes. When it transpired that both injuries were equally bad neither player had any hesitation in trying out the treatment - which involves a maximum of three minutes in the coldest chamber.

"Eoin and myself were together all the time and we just kept each other entertained with small talk, building up our hopes of being ready for the replay," McMahon continued.

"You are in constant contact with the supervisor on the outside and a strict time is kept on you to make sure that you get out when the three minutes have elapsed.

"When you get out you feel just unbelievable, fantastic and already you feel that the damaged ankle is beginning to get better. It was just kind of sensational, the extreme of cold and then the elation."

Crossmaglen have run into some injury problems of their own since the drawn game, with substitute Tony Kernan likely to miss out after sustaining a knee injury while playing for Armagh in the Ulster under-21 football win over Tyrone last Saturday.

Kernan, one of four brothers on the team, wasn't expected to feature for the county team, yet appeared as a late replacement, along with club colleague Stephen Finnegan. Kernan had appeared late in the drawn game with Crokes, but is now unlikely to feature at any stage.

Surprisingly, Sunday's game is only the fourth replayed final in the 36-year history of the All-Ireland club football championship. Crokes know a thing or two about replays having been forced into one by Moorefield in their semi-final.

MAYO (NFL v Dublin):Kenneth O'Malley; L O'Malley, J Kilcullen, K Higgins; E Devenney, B Padden, P Gardiner; P Harte, D Heaney; A Campbell, G Brady, A Kilcoyne; C Mortimer, A Dillon, A Moran.