ARMAGH will not be lacking for quality options in their half-forward line if Aidan Nugent recovers from a cruciate injury to join newcomers Ciaron O’Hanlon and Ross McQuillan in the battle for places in Kieran McGeeney’s side.
O’Hanlon and McQuillan have both returned to the fold for the 2021 season and Nugent – who is still in the process of recovering from a cruciate ligament operation – hopes to join them in the Division One campaign.
With the likes of Rory Grugan and Stefan Campbell already established as regulars in the side that won promotion from Division Two last year, Nugent expects to have to battle for every minute of game-time.
“The competition down there (in Armagh) is fierce,” he said.
“But you like to see players like that coming in. Ciaron and Ross (a team-mate at St Patrick’s, Cullyhanna) are going to be challenging for a similar position to myself but you still like to see them coming in because, at the end of the day, they’re going to help us get to where we want to get.”
A fully-fit Nugent would be a definite plus for Armagh next year. He still has some way to go before he is able to think about playing inter-county football again but says he is “getting there” five months after he sustained the injury to his left knee during a club game against Grange.
“I still have another three or four to go but I expected that, I knew it was going to be a long road,” he said.
“It actually hasn’t been too bad. At the start it’s slow but you go from not being able to walk, to walking, to being in the gym… You can see an improvement every week and there’s another fella who’s on the Armagh panel, Cahair McGeary, who did his cruciate too so me and him are following the same programme and holding each other accountable to do the rehab. It’s six days-a-week but it works well.
“Last season going down to watch the boys training gave me a wee bit of motivation. You could look at it two ways – you could feel sorry for yourself that you couldn’t train or you could see them pushing on and use it as a bit of motivation.
“I know that if I don’t put in the work I’ll not get back into the set-up or into the team. So there are going to be a few bumps along the way but I haven’t found it too bad yet.”
If everything goes according to plan, he will return to action in April/May which means that he could potentially see some action in the National League, depending on when it starts. He is cautiously optimistic but understandably reluctant to put a date on his return.
“They say it takes nine months to get over a cruciate so that would leave me fit for April or May but I’m not putting a date on it because if I say I’ll be back playing by then and I’m not… You don’t want it to set you back so I’ll take each week and month as it comes,” he said.
“I do want to get back but I want to do it right.
“When it happened I knew I was going to miss last season with Armagh but it was more sickening that I couldn’t even get to the games because of Covid.
“It was tough watching it on telly knowing that you could have been a part of it but you just had to take it on the chin. Cruciate injuries seem to be becoming more common, there seem to be more and more people doing it so that gives you a bit more confidence that the doctors know more about it and how to treat it.”
