Kevin Walsh says the “relentless” run of injuries that Galway have endured this year is the worst he’s known in management.
Walsh’s hand has been severely weakened at various stages this year through injuries as well as the absence of the Corofin contingent for all of the League campaign.
Ahead of Sunday’s Connacht football final against Roscommon, the Galway boss will definitely be without captain Damien Comer, who hasn’t kicked a ball for the county this year, along with Ciaran Duggan and Paul Conroy, who has just returned to club football after a horror leg-break against Kerry last year.
There are further doubts surrounding the fitness of Peter Cooke, Sean Kelly and Kieran Molloy, though Declan Kyne and Adrian Varley are available again.
In what is his 10th season managing at inter-county level between Galway and Sligo, Walsh says he’s never experienced a year like it.
“No, it’s relentless, it is,” he admitted. “It’s tough to handle. It’s a heavy workload on backroom teams as well and even county boards I’m sure. At the end of the year you’ll see it’ll be heavy on them because you have huge numbers in, trying to balance the whole thing is tough.
“I suppose the long-term injuries were long-term so at some point we kind of knew there was a timeframe on them so we had to deal with it.
“If all that happened to come last month and you hadn’t the other guys to come in in the National League, at least we had that warning time to try and develop other players so that’s been the plus side. It’s been a tough year with injuries, yeah.”
Walsh says the run of injuries is more down to misfortune than anything in their training schedule.
He explained: “We always look at the training structure and stuff and you’ll see patterns developing but unfortunately it’s mainly bad luck.
“It’s knee injuries or shoulder injuries or a lot of ankle injuries that required surgery and I think that’s either impact or it’s just a twist.
“If it was soft tissue, hamstrings and groins and stuff you’d have to be looking really, really deeply at it but that’s not the biggest issue so it’s just a bit of bad luck to be honest. It’s a heavy year for us.”
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