KERRY DEFENDER GAVIN White is rated ‘doubtful’ by manager Jack O’Connor to play in Sunday week’s All-Ireland final as he battles a knee injury.
White limped off in the 66th minute of last Sunday’s semi-final thriller against Dublin, in visible discomfort after injuring his knee.
Speaking at today’s media briefing in Killarney in advance of the final, O’Connor revealed the Dr Crokes defender has had a scan and is awaiting the results.
“Yeah, we’re just waiting for a report on it. He had a scan done so we have to wait. He’s doubtful at the minute, which is disappointing for him. I don’t know what the nature of the injury is – it’s knee-related. Other than that now lads, I’d be telling you lies if I told you what it was.
“It was a twist or something. Something to do with the way he turned. He was trying to do a bit of a cut or a twist. Look, all I know is he wouldn’t come off the field in a game like that if he wasn’t injured. He certainly wasn’t faking it.
“We’ll see what the scan report says and sure that’ll dictate it. But sure look, everyone is desperate to play in an All-Ireland final. No more than Con O’Callaghan, I’d say Dublin gave him every chance to try and play. You want your best players playing like.”
Kerry have no other pressing injury concerns with O’Connor admitting that keeping Covid at bay from their camp is a challenge.
“I suppose there was three or four didn’t train last night. Just hoping they’ll settle down. The elephant in the room then is Covid. You’re just hoping the way Covid is at the moment that it doesn’t spread into the camp because it’s something out of your control and that’s every manager’s nightmare.
“It’s difficult like. If you’re doing video analysis I mean you kind of have to get into a room. You ventilate it as much as you can but what do you do? You do your best. There’s no fool-proofing it.”
Dan O’Donoghue, who was a regular for Kerry during the league last spring before suffering an injury setback, is also back in the frame and played a club league game last week.
“He’s been training away with us for the last month I suppose, for three or four weeks, but you have to remember he missed an awful lot of time and it’s very hard to make up for that time at this time of year,” said O’Connor.
“If you miss that much time…sure Dan had a great League for us and was very unfortunate the way he picked up the injury above in Inniskeen I think it was.
“But we’ll see how fellas are going in the next, whatever we have, couple of sessions and we always watch now for fellas. The mind is never closed about who we’re going to pick for the starting 15 or the panel or we’ll see.”
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