Egan to undergo surgery to address injury problems

Westmeath football star Ger Egan is planning to undergo surgery this week as he tries to put his injury problems behind him.

The Tyrrellspass player and former Athlone IT student was not involved at all in Westmeath’s Leinster SFC quarter-final defeat to Dublin last Saturday evening.

“He’s had a tough year. He’s going for surgery again next week and his plan is to get back with the group for the preparation of the league next year,” said Westmeath manager Jack Cooney, in the aftermath of the match in Portlaoise.

“A player of Ger’s calibre is a huge loss. That's his first championship match to miss in 11 years. Even having him around the dressing room is very important, so we missed that today. We were also without Paddy Holloway, who started the last couple of league matches,” Cooney continued.

The Westmeath manager explained that the surgery Egan requires does not relate to his previous cruciate ligament injury.

“The cruciate is fine. It’s just he needs to clear up something, a keyhole procedure - something that’s inhibiting his full recovery. We made the decision that it would be risky to have him involved today. The bigger picture is to get him back for next year,” said Cooney.

With no All-Ireland qualifiers this year, Dublin’s 0-22 to 0-11 victory means Westmeath’s championship campaign is over after one game.

However, in assessing last Saturday’s encounter, Cooney was pleased with the character and battling qualities his players demonstrated.

“Overall, it was a daunting task for us but I’m very proud of the attitude and honesty from the lads right to the final whistle,” he said.

“We never gave up. We all know that Dublin can put teams away and they show no mercy. I thought our lads battled and showed great honesty, particularly in the backline.

“We really didn’t give them a goal chance and I thought we created two decent goal opportunities that could have made the scoreline look a lot healthier from our perspective.”

Cooney stressed that Westmeath’s “main focus” when the squad gathered in September was their first Allianz Football League match against Laois. “We wanted to maintain Division 2 status at least as that is a good platform for us to develop,” he said.

Cooney reckoned Westmeath did well in some respects last Saturday, and he highlighted turnovers in this regard.

“I’d say we turned over Dublin more than a lot of teams. We wanted to try and put a couple of goals past them. I think we created a couple of chances near the end when it opened up. They never really opened us up.

“I know you could say that (our approach) was lacking a lot of ambition to win the game, but we thought they were realistic, achievable goals to go after,” he said.

“We probably gave away the ball a few times that wasn’t part of the script. I don’t need to tell ye that Dublin are a serious team. We’ll learn an awful lot from this year.

“Since we came back in September, we brought in a lot of younger players with a view on development over the next couple of years. I think those couple of months are really going to stand to them.

“It has given them a taste of it and hopefully they will see the commitment that is required and they’ll make that decision to commit to Westmeath for a number of years,” Cooney added.