Blow for Trap as Duff joins growing injury list

DAMIEN DUFF is out of Ireland’s European Championship qualifier against Macedonia in June.

Since featuring in the home game against the Macedonians on March 26, a recurrence of an achilles problem has restricted Duff to just one appearance for his club and, speaking yesterday in Athlone, Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni revealed the bad news that – although Duff is included in the official squad press release as “provisional based on fitness” — the winger is now facing surgery in a bid to rectify the problem.

“A week ago he told me that he had a little problem with his achilles,” said Trapattoni, before confirming that in the space of just a few days it has emerged as quite a big problem indeed.