Durcan sees no problem with McGuinness commute for Celtic job

GAELIC GAMES:Jim McGuinness, Celtic football club's newest employee, embarks on the All Star trip to New York this morning with the ringing endorsement for his double jobbing sports experiment from his Donegal goalkeeper Paul Durcan.

The expectation is that McGuinness will shed more light on his new venture in the coming days but Durcan doesn’t see any problem with the Donegal manager’s commute to Glasgow next year.

“I don’t see it in any way being a disadvantage,” said Durcan. “As they say a man has got to work and for Jim it’s a job at the end of the day and I think he is smart enough to differentiate between Donegal and Celtic.

It’s another sport but it’s not really going to affect Donegal: it can only be an advantage to bring that professionalism in and I think Celtic didn’t just go with Jim for the Donegal reason, they obviously saw something in him and I think that’s only to our advantage.”

McGuinness will initially be working with younger players in a sports psychologist capacity for two days per week.

“In fairness it will be difficult but he is the type of person he will know what he is doing for the next six months and he will keep to that and we will know what he is doing and will have a programme set out. I don’t think it will affect us in any way and Jim has got a good man with him in Rory (Gallagher).”

Meanwhile, Galway hurling goalkeeper James Skehill has revealed the need for a second shoulder operation in 12 months’ time.

Forced off injured

The 24-year-old was forced off injured in the All-Ireland final replay defeat to Kilkenny in September and only went under the knife last week. He expects to return playing in March, from the left shoulder injury initially sustained during last March’s league meeting with Waterford.

“I had the surgery there on Wednesday down in Waterford with a surgeon called Ger Maloney,” said Skehill. “He actually opened me up and discovered more damage that originally expected but everything is fixed now. It’s on the road to recovery and we are expecting to be back playing by Paddy’s Day. Please God, all going well.”

The hope is his right shoulder will hold up under the rigours of another full season before needing a similar procedure at the end of 2013.

Skehill remains adamant it was the correct decision to start the replay.

“I would always back myself. Like, if the game was tomorrow I’d still try and play . . . Not being selfish, I felt at the time, we felt as a whole, that I was fit enough. There were a couple of incidents in the game that knocked me out of shape.

“From a team perspective, I wouldn’t say it knocked things out of sorts. Everyone was driven towards the goal and that was to win the cup.”

Premium offer for anniversary

The GAA yesterday announced a promotional offer of 100 premium tickets, situated in the Davin Stand, for €500 each to mark the 100th anniversary of naming and signing the deeds for Croke Park.

"The tickets are half price," said GAA president Liam O'Neill. "This is the launch of a series of initiatives to bring people to Croke Park. It's 100 years of Croke Park and we want to celebrate that and we want to fill the place as much as possible.

"We don't want spare seats. We're aiming at our own customers, we want to reward our own customers.

"We also want to entice people who have never been to Croke Park to be part of the Croke Park experience.