Mayo continue to hold out hope that forward Cillian O’Connor might still play some part in their All-Ireland final showdown against Dublin later this month, despite still nursing the dislocated shoulder he suffered in their semi-final win over Tyrone.
"We're just looking to see can he be a competitive option for selection," said Mayo manager James Horan, speaking at last night's All-Ireland final media event in Castlebar.
"But so far, so good. Cillian's been with the medical team, and has been re-habbing very well. He's working a couple of times a day with the physios. But I don't think anyone knows. I'm not a medical expert. The muscles around the shoulder are obviously sore so you are trying to re-hab those muscles as well as you can. It's usually a three or four week recovery time for something like that from what I understand.
'Accelerate that recovery'
"You try and accelerate that recovery, that's basically what it is. From again what I can take, it's a very similar injury that happened before, so if it happens once or twice it's not as significant if it keeps happening, until you have an operation to deal with it. But if there was any risk of long-term injury or anything that would jeopardise anything with the operation there wouldn't be any question there so that's obviously the primary point.
O'Connor – also their first-choice free-taker – only lasted 13 minutes into Mayo's semi-final win over Tyrone, a loss they still overcame thanks to other players stepping up on the day, most notably Alan Freeman.
“Yeah, we have got free-takers who did okay the last day. If Cillian isn’t up to do a job for us it’s like anything else, he won’t be selected. It’s how people are playing and the job they are doing for us. We just have to wait and see where that is.”
Horan is otherwise reporting a clean bill of health ahead of the final on September 22nd.
As for his final opponents, Moran was suitably impressed.
"It was an interesting game, there was a lot in it. Dublin did their thing and ran out winners in the end. There was a bit of everything in it. But I'm sure Jim Gavin is dealing with his own players, and we're just working on our game. We got through Tyrone and we're just preparing as well as we can for the next game."
