By Ryan Ferry

PADDY McBrearty is making good progress in his recovery from a hamstring injury sustained back in February, but is still unlikely to play any part in their round two championship opener against Derry on Sunday week, according to assistant manager Paddy Bradley.

McBrearty was very vocal on the bench in the second half of Donegal’s group stage victory over Clare last weekend. He also helped out in the warm-up and was seen kicking footballs over the bar, and Bradley hopes it won’t be too long before he’s leading the team out once again.

“Patrick is very far on in terms of his rehab. He’s at the final stages. Whether or not he will be in contention for the Derry game I don’t know.

“With the nature of the injury he had, and he had an operation and we took medical advice on that, he’s ramping up his rehab every week.

“The Derry game might be a wee bit too soon, but if not Derry, we would hope to see him against Monaghan for some game time. But he hasn’t even integrated into full training yet so we will have to see how that goes.”

Bradley also confirmed that Michael Langan’s inter-county season is over, but he isn’t giving up hope that Peadar Mogan will return from his ankle complaint for Aidan O’Rourke’s side.

“Michael has had to go through an operation similar to Patrick’s so given the fact that it was in the month of April or May, we’re not going to see any more of Michael this year

“Peader is different. He obviously had an ankle injury. We had hoped it would cure through rehab but it didn’t.

“He had to get a wee procedure done on his ankle, and that was done a couple of weeks ago, and we will just see how he responds to the rehab.

“We would be hoping if we are still in the competition in a few weeks time that Peadar might be fit to play some part for us.”

Stephen McMenamin picked up a nasty leg injury a few weeks ago, but was present in Ennis.

“Stephen probably could have been risked today. He has a bit of an ankle injury but it’s nothing serious.

“We just decided not to risk him today. We knew there was going to be three games coming in four weeks and he’s going to be an important player for us. He was in Convoy this morning doing a rehab session before driving down here to join up with the team. Stephen will be available the next day.”