Dubs face a nervous wait over severity of injury to in-form Bugler

The multiple All-Ireland winner took a heavy knock to the right calf while blocking a Derry player's shot midway through Saturday's Croker clash and had to be helped off the pitch.

Sun, 23 Feb, 2025 - 06:37

Paul Keane

Dublin manager Dessie Farrell says in-form attacker Sean Bugler faces a nervous wait to see how serious his calf injury is.

Bugler has been Dublin's player of the Division 1 campaign so far, firing six points from play in this evening's big win over holders Derry to bring his overall takings for the campaign to 0-19.

But the multiple All-Ireland winner took a heavy knock to the right calf while blocking a Derry player's shot midway through the second-half and had to be helped off the pitch.

It has left him as a doubt for next Saturday evening's Round 5 clash with All-Ireland holders Armagh.

"He got a kick in the calf, trying to block a shot," said Farrell. "He's hobbling around badly there at the minute. We'll obviously keep an eye on him tonight and tomorrow."

The prognosis appears much worse for attack minded defender Lee Gannon who, just back from a lengthy period out, suffered a fresh hamstring injury in the Round 3 defeat of Kerry.

"It's not great, to be honest," said Farrell of the man who started at wing-back in their 2023 All-Ireland final win. "It's very disappointing for Lee. Obviously we're still going through the rigours of getting him properly assessed.

"At this point the priority for us is Lee's physical health and wellbeing, his mental wellbeing around this. Because it's a big challenge for him, having to deal with this again.

"But we're remaining optimistic that he'll make a full and complete recovery and fingers crossed we might see him at the back end of this season as well."

Farrell handed full league debuts this evening to goalscorer Conor Tyrrell and Niall O'Callaghan while there was further gametime for Sean Lowry and Davy Keogh. Cuala duo Con O'Callaghan and Peadar O Cofaigh Byrne made their seasonal returns. Clontarf's Nathan Doran was an unused sub and will hope for a debut during the campaign.

Farrell said that with those inexperienced players in mind, and so many retirements over winter, it was important that the likes of Bugler showed such leadership before going off.

"That's the natural evolution," said Farrell. "As senior men move on, other players assume those roles. And Sean is definitely doing that for us on the pitch, which is great to see.

"That's what we need because probably on the face of it, you're worried about a deficit of leadership in the group with so many big players moving out. But it's great to see other men step up, that emerging leadership talent within the group."

Derry manager Paddy Tally confirmed that Ciaran McFaul pulled a hamstring in the warm-up so couldn't feature while Niall Toner tweaked his hamstring and had to come off midway through the first-half.

Tally described the evening as an eye-opener in terms of how the new rules are going to affect teams defensively.

"I think tonight was definitely my first indication of how difficult these rules are going to be in terms of defensive work," said former Kerry coach Tally.

"You still can score plenty. You do get plenty of chances to get scores on the board but defensively it's a much harder game, a lot more one-to-ones. You can't really drop off and mark space as much because then you leave the two-point shots as a possibility. Any quick switch of play and there's gaps that come through the middle and we were exposed tonight on that."