Dublin football manager Tommy Lyons reacted to news of Peadar Andrews's cruciate injury by saying that it is "a bad blow for Peadar personally and a bad blow for us as a team". The former All Star nominee defender injured his knee playing for his club St Brigid's on Monday and an MRI scan yesterday morning confirmed the damage.
"We're all very disappointed for Peadar," said Lyons. "He'll miss this championship but should recover within nine months. He's a very disciplined player."
At the start of the League campaign Lyons stated publicly that he hoped to strengthen his defensive cover so losing an experienced and reliable back is a depressing prelude to the campaign to retain the Leinster title.
Andrews will undergo surgery in a couple of weeks when the injured knee has had time to settle. Coming within a week of Tipperary hurler John Leahy's identical injury, the news focuses attention on one of the most severe injuries players can sustain in modern sport.
Former Dublin manager Pat O'Neill is a sports injury specialist and says that the rate of such injuries has been on the increase. "The incidence of cruciate injury probably has increased," he said. "Players are moving faster and there's more exposure because of the intense levels of training and playing. The speed at which things are carried out is the major influence as velocity is the most significant part of the equation."
Although technology revolutionised treatment of the problem in the 1980s, there hasn't been any recent breakthrough. "The main advance was 15 to 20 years ago," according to O'Neill, "but things improve all the time as refinements are made. Originally the grafts were artificial, using carbon fibre and polymer plastics but the knee is a hostile environment and the materials wore out or perished.
"Modern techniques use autologous tissue - from the body itself, such as hamstring tendon from the front of the knee. New developments are likely to come from using transplant tissue."
O'Neill said that there are no statistical grounds for associating cruciate damage in one knee with subsequent damage in the other - as happened in Leahy's case. But he also stressed that cruciate damage is seldom isolated.
"It doesn't usually occur on its own and is quite often associated with damage to the cartilage, collateral ligament or even surfaces within the knee, which has the potential for developing into osteo-arthritis."
The injury is more common in football than in hurling but counts as one of the most serious that can befall any sportsperson. "The big difficulties are cruciate, groin and recurrent back injuries," according to O'Neill. "Lower back injuries in the lumbar region have become far more frequent."
