Patrick McBrearty is likely to return to spearhead the Donegal attack for Saturday-week’s League clash with Tyrone in Ballybofey.
McBrearty sat out the games against Dublin and Cavan having injured a quad in the win over Roscommon last month.
The forward had been named to start in Cavan on Saturday night, but didn’t make the final XV.
However, Rory Gallagher says that he is ’95 per cent certain’ that McBrearty will be returned to the team next weekend, although the player won’t like out for Kilcar against Glenswilly in the All-County League on Sunday.
“We’d hope that Patrick will train fully with us at the weekend or early next week and we wouldn’t anticipate any reason that he wouldn’t be in the team for the Tyrone game,” Gallagher said.
Senior manager Gallagher is hopeful on the rest Donegal’s injuries ahead of a big week of games against Tyrone.
Declan Bonner’s Donegal Under-21s face Tyrone at Healy Park on Wednesday night in the Ulster Under-21 Championship before the counties clash again three nights later at Sean MacCumhaill Park in the Allianz League.
Although Gallagher will be keeping his fingers crossed that his players come through the opening round of the 2017 All-County League unscathed, the outlook at the moment, at least, is promising.
Under-21 midfielder Jason McGee, who has impressed so far in his debut year with the seniors, looked set for a period on the sidelines but, at a press conference yesterday evening in Ballybofey, Gallagher was a little more optimistic about the Cloughaneely man.
“We just don’t know and it’ll depend on the range of movement that he can get, but it’s not as bad as it looked initially,” Gallagher said.
McGee sustained what Gallagher called ‘bad bruising’ on his shoulder during last Saturday’s win over Cavan and remains in a race against the clock for Wednesday’s Championship tussle.
Kieran Gillespie and Cian Mulligan, another two who are in both the under-21 and senior panels, are struggling, but Gallagher said that the prognosis was ‘very favourable’.
He said: “In an ideal world, Kieran would be able to play some part of Wednesday and again on Friday. We’d expect him to be fit. He has missed a lot of training. He hasn’t trained properly since mid-December, and he had been one of the fittest in our squad until then.
“The next few days will tell a tale.
“Cian has missed a lot too, but it generally doesn’t take him long to get up to speed. He should be declared fit, as in that he’ll be over the injury, but again it’s just how much football that he can play.
“We’d expect them all to be fine now and it’s just a matter of how much game time they can get.”
Rory Carr was given the all-clear by a specialist in Galway last week, enabling the St Eunan’s man to return to full-contact training again.
Gallagher said: “It would be a massive ask, but he’s certainly in the equation. He played a challenge game with the under-21s this week.”
Martin McElhinney has been integrated back into the squad again, while Karl Lacey is aiming to return for the final game of the League against Mayo.
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