FORMER Cargin PRO Geordie McGuckian, has called on the GAA to conduct a survey on the apparent increase of injuries which “can lead to long term suffering.” McGuckian’s club will have five players out of action for some time. All have been sidelined by serious knee injuries.
Antrim captain Michael Johnston recently had his second cruciate knee ligament operation.
In the Irish News last week, Johnston said players, who face time off work due to injury, should seek personal insurance.
Lamh Dhearg player and Antrim vice-captain, Terry McCrudden, is also out of the game with the same injury, while Cargin’s Shanie McQuillan, Pat and Eamonn McCann and Niall Lynn all face knee operations in the near future.
McGuckian, who will run for the PRO post at the Antrim county convention on Sunday evening, pointed out that the injuries of Johnston and the McCann brothers all came during games at Casement Park during the Antrim senior football championship.
“Doctors say there are two main reasons for serious knee injuries, the standard of playing surface and standard of footwear.
“It’s not Cargin disease that all these players have been hit by the same injury, it’s happening all over Ulster and Ireland.
“I think it’s time the GAA took it upon itself to employ a survey and find out how these knee injuries in particular occur.”
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BRIAN Magee, the world middleweight number seven, confirmed he is to return to the ring next month for the first time since the Olympics Games to defend his Smithwick’s Ulster senior championship title.
A knee cartilage operation sidelined Magee after the Atlanta experience where he qualified for the quarter-finals. He missed out on Northern Ireland’s outstanding medals drive in South Africa during November’s Commonwealth championships due to injury.
Damaen Kelly and Stephen Kirk struck gold at the event, Adrian Patterson and Mick Blaney silver. Magee confirmed he’s fighting fit, is aiming to make an impact at the world seniors in Hungary later this year and clinch selection for Malaysia in August, where Northern Ireland’s top seniors compete in the pre-Commonwealth Games tournament.
“It is a very important year, a year to build on the achievement of Atlanta, and the world seniors is the main objective. I hope to do well in the world championships, but first of all there is the Ulsters,’’ he said.
“The knee injury which troubled me after the Olympics is completely sorted out.”
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THE number of team officials called before the disciplinary committee in Fermanagh for abuse of referees increased in 1996, according to a leading county official.
In his annual report ahead of Sunday’s county GAA convention in Donagh, Fermanagh secretary Paddy Donnelly says this increase “is a worrying trend...which cannot be tolerated”.
In his report the Derrylin official calls for harsher sentences to be imposed on offences of this kind.
And although the number of suspensions in games slightly increased in 1996, the secretary said these were incurred in only approximately 10 per cent of adult club games while most of the games were incident free.
