Kerry captain Cooper allays injury fears

KERRY captain Colm Cooper has allayed fears that he will need to go under the knife to cure a troublesome ankle injury.

Cooper was hampered by the problem throughout the Kingdom’s championship run and it also affected his ability to train during Dr Crokes’ march to a second successive Kerry senior football title. But Cooper received positive feedback from his latest medical examination of the ankle last week and is fully focused on preparing for Dr Crokes All-Ireland SFC club semi-final meeting with Crossmaglen Rangers on February 18.

“The ankle is fine. I’ve had a month to six weeks now without any problems with it,” he said.

“The medical teams have been taking a look at it regularly enough and saw it again last week. They’re quite pleased with it. I don’t think there’s going to be any need to get an operation to sort it out which is very good as we’ve a lot of games coming up. I just had problems with the ankle in the middle of last summer when I picked up a knock on it.

“But it started to settle down then for me during the Munster club championship and I was able to get through those games okay. Since we beat UCC in the final in December, it’s felt very good.”

* The AIB GAA Skills Challenge will get under way tomorrow at Na Piarsaigh in Limerick where Colm Cooper, Paul Flynn JJ Delaney and Brendan Cummins will challenge teams from the club to test their skills.