Derry City injury nightmare has to end

Derry City’s 2023 was a season in which everything which could go wrong, did go wrong, from a personnel point of view.

Even before a ball was kicked against St. Patrick’s Athletic at the start of last season, Ruaidhri Higgins had some of his best players missing – Cameron Dummigan the standout as he picked up a hamstring injury in a pre-season game in Spain, and as a result, didn’t appear until a late substitute against Bohemians in May, 15 games into the season.

Dummigan, so influential for Derry City in 2022, is a key member of the squad with his experience, composure and ability to manage a game of vital importance, particularly in the bigger games of the campaign. He did not complete 90 minutes until Shelbourne in June, and by that stage, City were 19 games into a season, and other big players were also missing.

The Europa Conference League aside, in which he played 3 full games, Dummigan didn’t complete another 90 minutes until September, and he finished the season with five full 90 minutes at a stage when it was already clear that Derry City were not catching Shamrock Rovers. In all, Dummigan made 17 starts in all competitions, but only finished 9 games to completion.

Mark Connolly was another crucial player whose season was destroyed by injury. He played every minute of the first three league games of the season, before suffering an injury against UCD, which kept him out until June. He played every minute of City’s six European games, including extra time against Tobol, and made sporadic appearances afterwards.

He started at Dalymount Park in August but lasted just 17 minutes before being replaced by Shane McEleney, and made cameo appearances as substitute thereafter until he played the full 90 minutes in the final game of the season against St. Patrick’s Athletic.

In all he completed just five fill games in the entire league campaign.

Captain Patrick McEleney’s problems are well documented at this point. The midfielder, who featured in 34 league games in 2022, started just 10 games for Dery City last season, and has now finished a full 90 minute since last March 31. His Achilles problems plagued him all season, so much so that he had to fly to Sweden for an operation on both Achilles at the end of the season.

Overall, in 45 games in all competitions in 2023 – the trio of Cameron Dummigan, Mark Connolly and Patrick McEleney, the spine of the team, started together just four times, one of which was on the final day of the season.

The injury nightmare also saw Colm Whelan make just three appearances, and with others such as Ronan Boyce, Adam O’Reilly, Michael Duffy and Will Patching all missing out throughout the season, it is very fair to say that at no point last season was Ruaidhri Higgins able to pick his best eleven.