Offaly senior football boss John Maughan has described a season-ending injury to defender Niall Darby as “absolutely devastating”.
The long-serving Rhode man was in line to play in Sunday’s Tailteann Cup semi-final against Westmeath at Croke Park but a suspected cruciate knee ligament injury sustained at training on Tuesday night means that he will play no part in the rest of the campaign and is virtually certain not to feature again for his club in 2022 either.
Darby first appeared for the county at senior level back in 2008 and given the recovery period involved, the injury may well bring a hasty end to his inter-county career altogether.
Maughan also reported that Tullamore rising star John Furlong is set to be out for another six months.
Furlong was one of the stars of Offaly’s All-Ireland under-20 success last year but faced a taxing run of games at various grades at club level thereafter amid highly questionable fixture-planning and has barely played this year amid ongoing groin and hip issues.
Maughan said: “We were just chatting at training on Tuesday night, how much he [Darby] was looking forward to playing against their great rivals Westmeath, that’s how he classified them. He was anticipating and looking forward to the game. It’s shattering.
“I had just gone over to chat to John Furlong who had also got bad news insofar as it looks like he’s going to be out for another six months so I was commiserating with him and acknowledging the fact that he was only 19, that he has time on his side and that he will have lots of opportunities to recover and play inter-county football.
“Fifteen minutes later I’m down on my knees beside Niall Darby and he’s absolutely shattered. He’s sobbing with pain and I went home to Castlebar on Tuesday night absolutely shattered and distraught for Niall in particular but for the group in particular because he’s universally liked by all within the group,” he told Off The Ball.
Victory for Offaly on Sunday would be only their second at Croke Park since beating Wexford to qualify for the 2006 Leinster final, the other being a Division Four League final win over Longford in 2015.
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