THE CONDITION of a GAA player who received head injuries during a game in the United States has improved slightly.
Mark McGovern (22) from the Belcoo O’Rahilly’s club in Fermanagh was taken to hospital after an incident while playing in his debut for Ulster GAA club San Francisco last Saturday night.
Mr McGovern had not regained consciousness but had shown signs of improvement and had responded to his friends, Fermanagh GAA spokeswoman Deirdre Donnelly said.
It was unclear what exactly had happened during the off-the-ball incident, she said.
“But he has taken a very serious blow to the head,” Ms Donnelly told BBC radio. “We cant jump to conclusions. We don’t know what happened out there,” she said.
She expected that the authorities in San Francisco would investigate the incident and find out what happened.
There was a “waiting game” to see if he came through. It would take time to see if there were any long-term problems but hopefully he would make a full recovery, Ms Donnelly said.
Mr McGovern’s parents have since travelled to San Francisco to be by their son’s bedside.
The student had travelled to San Francisco to play football for the summer with two other Belcoo team-mates, Emmet Scollan and Ciarán Flaherty, who also played in Saturday’s game.
He had arrived just a week before the incident.
Due to a difficult jobs market he had travelled to San Francisco for the summer to have a holiday and play football while there, Ms Donnelly said.
Every year an estimated 400 Irish players with J1 student visas receive sanctions to transfer temporarily to a North American GAA club for the summer period.
Mr McGovern, who is on the fringes of the Fermanagh senior county side, lined out for the county in this year’s Dr McKenna Cup.