DONEGAL MIDFIELDER Martin McElhinney will miss DCU’s Sigerson Cup match against Cork IT today after suffering a recurrence of an ankle injury while playing for his county in the closing minutes of Saturday night’s Division One league match against Down.
McElhinney’s misfortune is the latest twist in a turbulent few weeks during which he found himself at the centre of a heated public exchange of words between his DCU coach Niall Moyna and his Donegal manager, Jim McGuinness, over his availability to both sides in the early part of the season.
Now, both teams will have to plan without the St Michael’s man in forthcoming weeks. After colliding with a Down player during the injury-time period on Saturday night, McElhinney suffered a repeat of the ankle injury from which he had recently recovered.
McElhinney had come into the match as a substitute and scored Donegal’s only goal after 51 minutes, but struggled, leaving the field after suffering the injury in the dying seconds of the match. A spokesperson from his club yesterday confirmed the player is likely to be sidelined for several weeks. McElhinney was due to line out for DCU in today’s Sigerson Cup game against Cork IT, which takes place on the Dublin campus.
McElhinney is one of three Donegal players on the DCU squad and was at the centre of a debate between college and county in which his managers became embroiled. McGuinness reacted strongly to claims by Moyna he had coerced McElhinney into playing a challenge game for Donegal against Monaghan prior to DCU’s O’Byrne Cup game against Meath.
The Donegal manager pointed out the DCU game had been rescheduled, creating the clash of fixtures and emphasised the difficulty involved in preparing for the season with so many players tied up in third-level football competition.
After Donegal’s one-point defeat on Saturday night, McGuinness reiterated his unhappiness at the fact he didn’t feel his squad had been sufficiently prepared for their opening encounter. McElhinney will now join his Donegal and DCU team-mate Michael Murphy on the sidelines for a period of recuperation.
Mayo midfielder Aidan O’Shea will be available to manager James Horan for Saturday night’s match against Dublin in Castlebar. The Breaffy man formed an effective central partnership with his brother Séamus last summer and travelled with the team to Portlaoise for their Division One victory against Laois on Saturday. Although named on the programme, he was not passed fit to play.
“He was named in the substitutes bench but he had been carrying a knock so it was decided not to play him,” said Mayo PRO Aiden McLaughlin.
O’Shea’s return bolsters the options available to Horan, with Ballina’s Pat Harte returning to prominence in that win over Laois.
Harte’s club-mate Ronan McGarrity, a mainstay in the Mayo midfield since 2004, has not been involved with the squad so far this year as Horan continues to reshape the squad following last year’s impressive All-Ireland championship season.
Dublin will travel to Mayo with diminished midfield depth following Eamon Fennell’s straight red card for a late challenge on Kerry’s Bryan Sheehan on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Cork will review referee Syl Doyle’s report before they make a decision on whether to appeal the red card shown to Paul Kerrigan during Sunday’s ill-tempered drawn match against Armagh. The Nemo Rangers man was dismissed following an altercation with Finian Moriarty.
Afterwards, Cork manager Conor Counihan said he felt the linesman, who drew Doyle’s attention to the incident, was reacting to crowd pressure.
It is understood Kerrigan motioned with his head in Moriarty’s direction, drawing a voluble reaction from the home crowd.
Armagh manager Paddy O’Rourke also opined that Kerrigan’s dismissal was unfortunate.
“We won’t make any decision until we receive the referee’s report and know what he has been cited for,” Cork PRO Tracy Kennedy said yesterday.
Kerrigan is one of a number of players dismissed over the weekend who will receive match bans rather than a time-based suspension. Following a decision made at Congress last April, Category Two and Three offences – which Kerrigan’s transgression will fall under – carry one or two match suspensions.
BRAWL INQUIRY: committee to hear cases of Derrytresk eight
* THE GAA’s Central Hearings Committee (CHC) will this evening hear the cases of the eight Derrytresk players suspended for their part in the mass brawl that marred last month’s All-Ireland junior club football semi-final against Dromid Pearses.
The Tyrone club are out this Sunday in the All-Ireland junior final, where they will face Naomh Pádraig of Galway but because of the suspensions are down eight players – including four regular starters in Kevin Campbell, Seán Slater, Michael Robinson and Joe McKee, each of whom received two-month bans.
It has also emerged that the female Derrytresk supporter who allegedly hit Kerry and Dromid Pearses star Declan O’Sullivan with a handbag in the aftermath of the same game has been banned from attending GAA games for a year, after the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee proposed a 48-week ban.
The CCCC is still expected to take further action against a number of other supporters who became involved in the ugly scenes at the Portlaoise venue.
* Dublin are awaiting a fitness update on Michael Dara Macauley and the shoulder injury he sustained during Saturday’s Allianz Football League Division One defeat to Kerry, forcing his late replacement, before declaring whether he’ll be fit to travel to face Mayo this Saturday evening.
