Bonner on Murphy injury: 'Any time Michael goes off you worry about it'

Declan Bonner says ‘there may have been some damage done’ as Michael Murphy hobbled from the field in Ballybofey today.

The Donegal manager will continue to put his trust in the medical team in regards to injuries picked up ahead of the trip to Killarney in two weeks’ time. His side overcame Kildare 2-11 to 1-9 in Ballybofey this afternoon but both Murphy and Jason McGee hobbled off and Bonner already has a number of key players on the sidelines.

Donegal evade Kildare challenge - but injuries to Murphy and McGee a concern

Declan Bonner's side were five-point winners in the end to put themselves onto three points from their opening two Allianz League fixtures

Murphy went down after 21 minutes and limped off to be replaced by Charles McGuinness and McGee picked up what looked like a dead leg three minutes into the second half.

“Michael will be looked at by the medical team,” Bonner said immediately afterwards. “Any time Michael goes off you worry about it. It’s too early. We’ll see what the medical team say. There seems to be some damage done.

“Jason was playing extremely well. He got what looks like a bang and hopefully it’ll be nothing more than that. We had to get him off, but hopefully he’ll be okay for the trip to Kerry. We won’t take any chances with any of the players. That was a hard, physical encounter. “

Stephen McMenamin made his first appearance of 2021 as a late substitute and like McGee, Bonner is hopeful Niall O’Donnell will return. Daire Ó Baoill, Hugh McFadden and Neil McGee have yet to appear this year, while Jamie Brennan, who played against Derry in the Dr McKenna Cup, will be out “for the next number of weeks.”

All in all, Bonner was reasonably content with the five-point victory and felt his side fared better when put under pressure in the second half, when comparing it to last Sunday’s draw with Mayo, when Donegal left with only a point having been five points up.

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“We finished better,” Bonner added. “When you’re in Division One, you’re playing top teams. We didn’t cope against Mayo. We should have seen that out - but it was a learning curve for us. We have a lot of young lads coming on. We didn’t have Michael for the majority of this game and we don’t have Hughie McFadden, who is our vice captain. Lads are standing to stand up and that’s important for us moving forward.

“We still have plenty of room for improvement. We gave the ball away far too cheaply at times so we need to be better on the ball.”