AS London’s Connacht Senior Football Championship clash with Roscommon at Ruislip on May 24 drifts closer manager Paul Coggins might be forced into a few defensive call ups.
Philip Galvin, who impressed during the Allianz Football League, is awaiting a scan on a knee injury as the Exiles lost a challenge game at Butlersbridge against Cavan on Saturday by 1-19 to 0-8, whileTony Gaughan is also a serious doubt with a long standing back problem.
“It is very disappointing for Philip Galvin to suffer a knee injury, and we are awaiting a scan now,” Coggins told The Irish Post on Monday.
“He has trained very well all year, but hopefully the injury won’t turn out to be as bad as we think it is. Tony Gaughan has to be rated as a serious doubt at this stage too so we might have to bring in a few defenders soon.
“We’ve brought in Ashley Carr and Eanna Kennedy to give us extra options in attack, but while I am not a man to make excuses we did have a hard time with injuries during our League campaign too.
“I wouldn’t read too much into the Cavan result- the match was played in absolute deluge at Lorcan Mulvey’s home club.
“The score wasn’t important because we got what we wanted from the weekend; we had a good training session on Sunday too.”
Last month John Evans promising Roscommon outfit won Division Two of the Allianz Football League so Coggins is expecting a tough test.
“With the opposition we are facing we must stick together. Roscommon are an up and coming team, who are making great progress.
“We need to focus a lot on ourselves, but we are moving our training to Ruislip this week and that will help us.
“We are in Championship mode now so for the next few weeks the players must be really focused on the game all of the time.
“It is important that we don’t over analyse Roscommon too; we need to ensure we give the performance that we always give in this game.
“That is our task and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. We are looking forward to Roscommon coming over.”
