Galway midfielder Paul Conroy suffered a double leg break in today’s All-Ireland quarter-final round one game against Kerry, manager Kevin Walsh has confirmed.
Conroy and Seán O’Shea slid into one another and Conroy came out the worst of the collision, a lengthy stoppage being required to treat the St James man.
“Just after hearing that it's a double break in the leg, so it's not good for the year for him at the minute,” Walsh told the print and online media following the game.
“Look it, we'll look after him and I'm sure he'll be bouncing around as soon as he gets things done with himself. A big loss for us, he's a real warrior for the year, so we wish him well on that.”
Walsh wasn’t dwelling on the significance of the win being the first Championship one over Kerry in 53 years.
“It puts one or two stats out of the way, maybe. But, at the end of the day, it is a first win in however number of years so it was important for us to perform today and, you know, everything wasn't perfect. It wasn't perfect for Kerry either, there were a lot of wides on both sides.
“Something we'll have to improve on, but, at the same time, the application from the players was very, very good for this game in particularly. Again, it's one game of three so we've a lot of work to do on it. I'm sure Kerry themselves will be finding holes that they have themselves as well and working the same way.”
Éamonn Fitzmaurice said Kerry wouldn’t be getting carried away with the defeat despite its disappointment.
He said: “I think you’ve to give credit to Galway. I mean we knew that it was going to be a huge jump from the Munster Championship.
"We weren’t getting carried away with the Munster Championship results. We knew we played well but that there was more there at the same time. Same as we won’t get carried away with this.
“We were well off it today but we’re still in the Championship."
"We’ve a tough game now next weekend up in Clones and we’re going up there, we’re fighting for our lives and we’ll have to bring everything we have but, you know, I suppose the positive thing from our point of view is that we’re still in the Championship.
“If this was the old system of an All-Ireland quarter-final knockout and we brought that level of performance today, that’s it, we’re gone, we’re out and we’re finished so we have another chance. We have another chance next weekend but we need to improve 100%.”
