Mayo boss Kevin McStay faces an anxious wait for a fitness update on star defender Paddy Durcan this week.
The Westerners’ captain had to be helped from the field after he “jarred his knee” in the final seconds of Saturday evening’s All-Ireland SFC series victory over Cavan at MacHale Park in Castlebar.
McStay said afterwards he was “hopeful enough” that Durcan’s injury wasn’t serious, but admitted that it would take 72 hours for an MRI scan to be completed.
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“We don’t know anything yet, except that he’s up and walking around and in good form,” he explained on Saturday evening.
“He certainly jarred his knee and the hope is that it’s nothing serious, but it will be 72 hours before we get him scanned.
“But I’m hopeful enough he’ll be OK.”
Durcan, who won an All Star award in 2019, had missed Mayo’s defeat to Galway in the Connacht Final with a calf injury and only came off the bench during the second half against Cavan.
“It was a toss-up whether or not we needed to bring him on, but we wanted to get minutes into him before the Roscommon game,” said McStay.
“But hopefully he’ll be back trotting on Tuesday evening.”
Mayo got their group stages campaign off to a flying start with a comfortable nine points win over Cavan as Cillian O’Connor delivered a man of the match display on his first start for the Westerners in 14 months.
McStay admitted that he was “quite pleased” with the manner of his team’s display.
“We knew this was a contest that we had to get a grip on early, and I’m quite pleased with the first quarter and the way we were up for it.
“It wasn’t perfect, but I’m really pleased that we saw it through the whole match.
“We kept the scoreboard moving throughout the four quarters which was quite pleasing.”
“We didn’t do a whole lot different today from the Connacht Final but we were shooting the lights out, we scored nine out of 10 shots in the first half.
“When we have that level of accuracy, and we keep the turnovers down, we’re a very competitive and energetic team.
“I just wish people would concentrate on that side of it and see the positives.”
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