Broken ankle for Ravenhill as Offaly GAA chairman queries “devastating” spate of injuries

ROSS Ravenhill has joined Oisin Kelly, Padraig Cantwell and Brian Duignan on a mounting injury list for Offaly senior hurlers.

Durrow man, Ravenhill sustained a broken ankle in Sunday's National Hurling League draw with Kildare on Sunday and got an operation on Monday morning. He limped off in first half injury time. His injury did not seem too bad at first as he tried to run it off but he was later diagnosed with a broken ankle.

Forward Eimhin Kelly also tore ankle ligaments in the draw with Kildare and it has left manager Johnny Kelly with a panel of 26 fit players at the moment.

It is a devastating blow to Offaly's prospects in the league and the Joe McDonagh Cup. It comes as they were coming to terms with the news that exciting forward Oisin Kelly had done his cruciate on his “good knee” - he had spent over a year on the sidelines after a cruciate on his other knee and was just getting back to full fitness.

Shamrocks' Padraig Cantwell is also out with a long term knee injury while Brian Duignan had an operation on a finger a couple of weeks ago.

It prompted Offaly GAA chairman Michael Duignan to make an emotive reference to the spate of injuries affecting Offaly players across the codes and grades at a County Board meeting on Monday night.

Referring to the very busy schedule of games for all teams in the coming weeks, he wondered was it a result of all the training for that.

He referred to the extent of the long term injuries sustained by members of the Offaly All-Ireland U-20 football winning team in 2022: Kieran Dolan, Keith O'Neill, Cathal Donoghue (cruciate) while Cormac Egan has got a bad finger injury and John Furlong is only battling back to full fitness.

Mr Duignan remarked: “It is non stop. Maybe other counties have bigger panels but it is absolutely devastating our panels. It is something we need to look at and maybe at a national scale. Why are so many people getting injured, especially cruciates? It seems to be out of control with GAA players. Whether it is to do with the training load or what is being expected of amateur players, I don't know. I am not an expert on that.”

He joked: “Maybe we didn't run fast enough back in our day but there wasn't that level of cruciates in particular and it seems to be every day of the week now. I see David Burke from Galway as well yesterday.”

Mr Duignan stated that Offaly will be looking at strength and conditioning of players from a very young age and announced that they are looking at appointing a head of performance in the next couple of months to monitor players and assess this area from a younger age. “To make sure they are doing the relevant training at the proper time but it is a huge issue going forward,” he said.