No gain in playing with pain

This time of year, with the championship about to gather steam, there's no worse blow for any inter-county player than the news that an injury is likely to require an operation. The thought of enforced viewing from the sidelines is about as frustrating as it gets.

For Longford's Enda Barden, that's the scenario he's now facing. His limited participation in last Sunday's first round-robin game of the Leinster football championship ended with the realisation that he will require an operation on his knee.

And so, prematurely, his season's door is already being closed. The knee injury he picked up in the penultimate league game against Monaghan has dragged on without obvious signs of repair. But it's an all too familiar problem in Gaelic games; a player is injured at a key time of the year, battles on in the hope that it will improve, but eventually breaks down and succumbs to the inevitable.

"It wasn't that there was any pressure on me to play last Sunday," he says. "I was told I had a 50-50 chance of it being alright, and I wanted to try it myself and see how it felt. I know now that it's definitely not right."

Barden will now await the outcome of a scope before knowing the full extent of his lay-off. The preliminary diagnosis is ligament damage with possible cartilage problems as well. "I wasn't happy at all with how it felt on Sunday. It just didn't work out, and I couldn't get involved the way I wanted to. So an operation is now almost certain if I'm to get it 100 per cent right."

Longford's hopes of coming through the series will be further reduced by Barden's absence. The opening defeat by Wexford on Sunday means that Longford must surely win their second of three games against Wicklow this weekend to have any chance of reaching the knockout championship. For the county that won the O'Byrne Cup three months ago failure will be a major disappointment.

Barden's midfield role with Longford has been pivotal since he first broke into the panel eight years ago. At 26, he still has plenty of time to put this setback - his first serious injury - behind him. And he's not putting the blame on anyone.

"I had been doing a bit of training and getting lots of physio as well," he says. "I'm definitely for the idea of playing these three preliminary games, especially against teams of your own level, and the timing shouldn't really be a problem. This injury came in a league game and you can go months without getting an injury. But I want to get this right now."

Still, according to Dublin's Noel McCaffrey, one of the more experienced doctors in the sport, there are problems with players pressing through injuries for the sake of one more "crucial" game, and often with drastic consequences.

"If you're talking about abuse of players, or managers, the medical team and players themselves lacking the discipline or courage to make the sensible decision, I would probably say yes, it does happen. In my experience short cuts don't work, and the player inevitably ends up missing months rather than weeks."

There are, however, significant differences between acute and overuse injuries - or those that happen in the heat of a game or come on gradually over the course of the season. For the majority, it is perfectly safe to play through with proper precautions. "The more significant risks usually come with the knee area or the Achilles tendon," says McCaffrey. "It's mostly a question of common sense, but that doesn't often prevail."

Last year's championship threw up some interesting examples. Meath's Ollie Murphy was carried off with a knee injury in the All-Ireland semi-final win over Armagh and there were some doubts over his fitness for the final. That was one chance which obviously paid off but for Waterford's Tony Browne, who carried a suspect ankle into the Munster hurling semi-final with Cork, the subsequent repercussions were far more debilitating.

"Players will always take risks, if there is pressure there or not. And most managers do realise the futility of using a player who is carrying an injury. From a medical point of view, the aim is to get the player on the pitch but it's also necessary to plan a sensible and gradual return for the player. And that's not an easy thing to regulate."

One of the more controversial problems, McCaffrey admits, surrounds cortisone injections: "They definitely have a role to play. There are excellent grounds to use it as an anti-inflammatory drug and it can be dramatically beneficial. The problem is that it shouldn't be used in the week before a game, and especially not the day of a game. It temporarily weakens the area, and that has obvious dangers for something like an Achilles tendon injury. A rupture is a very possible outcome. That doesn't happen a whole lot, but again some players will always take the risk."

The harder grounds and increase in training at this time of year also contribute to the problem. Players do find it hard to adjust to the harder surfaces, and with less give, the number of Achilles tendon injuries will always mount up.

"It can be frustrating for the manager, and hard for the player to understand, but if something is torn, it won't get better in a week."