Double boost for Dublin

THERE was a double helping of good news for Dublin supporters yesterday, with Alan Brogan insisting he will be available for the Blues’ Leinster SFC opener against Wexford on June 13, and that brother Bernard’s knee injury may not as bad as initially feared.

The elder Brogan aggravated an old hamstring problem playing for St Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh against Ballyboden St Enda’s on Saturday night while Bernard hurt his knee in the same game with fears that it threatened his season.

However Alan is confident that both will make a speedy recovery.

“I’m not sure how bad it is, I haven’t spoken to him. I think there might be a small bit of ligament damage in his knee, but I don’t think it’s too serious, hopefully” said Brogan at yesterday’s launch of this year’s Opel Gaelic Players’ Awards scheme. I was at the physiotherapist last night and there’s a bit of a tear in (my hamstring). It’s hard to tell at the moment but you’re probably looking at three or four weeks. Hopefully if I can keep it to that I’ll be happy enough.

“It’s looking at a grade two or three – it’s not torn but there’s a bit of damage done. It will probably take the next 48 hours (to know). I would be surprised if I wasn’t back in four weeks, but I hurt it in February as well. It was also the same one I did a few years ago… so I just need to be careful of it.”

Brogan has been unfortunate in the past six months as apart from the recurring hamstring trouble he also suffered a fractured scaphoid bone in his wrist. He admits that the latest setback is frustrating, especially as he had hit the ground running on his return to the Dublin team against Tyrone. He doesn’t enjoy the watching brief but reckons the league has served the Dubs well in terms of a implementing a change of style while also unearthing new talent.

“It was kind of strange at the start because of the way Pat obviously has his ideas and we knew we probably needed to defend a little bit more. In the first few league games it was very obvious, and probably not very entertaining.

“I think he probably found a couple of players. Kevin McManamon has done well enough in the league and one or two others as well. So from that point of view it was probably positive. But we know we have a long way to go. We’ve been in this position before and ended up with egg on our face, so we won’t be making any wild predictions.”

Not reaching the league final having won their first four games was a disappointment but so impressed is Brogan with Cork right now that he reckons they might have been better off.

“We probably would have been doing well to beat a very strong Cork team anyway, so maybe it was a bit of a blessing. I think at this stage… is anyone capable of beating them?

“They certainly look very strong, even stronger than last year, and it looks like they have 24-25 players and they’re well capable of bringing 15 out of that 25 playing in the latter stages of the summer. And there’s not too many counties you can say that about at the moment.”