Moran doesn't know when Ryan O’Rourke will be back for Leitrim
The injury woes of Leitrim talisman Ryan O’Rourke don’t seem to be ending soon after manager Andy Moran admitted that he does not know when the Fenagh St Caillins attacker will be back wearing the Leitrim colours.
Speaking after Leitrim’s crucial 2-14 to 0-18 victory over Laois on Sunday that keeps the Green & Gold’s Allianz NFL Division 4 promotion hopes alive, the Leitrim manager admitted that the loss of O’Rourke has hit his team hard throughout the season and admitted he did not know when he will be back on the field.
Asked about the change in formation that saw Keith Beirne move to centre-forward and Donal Wrynn switch into full-forward, Andy reacted with a joke when asked if the move was designed to get Keith Beirne into the game more: “What do you want him to score? It is not to get him more into the game.
“We were kind of waiting for Ryan all through the League, hoping to get Ryan back so that we’d have the two key attackers up there that we always had last year throughout the League. Ryan, we don’t know when he will be back.
“We had to change it up, Keith comes out, Donal goes inside and I think it worked quite well. Donal Wrynn in full-forward, it mightn’t have worked brilliantly in the second half but it definitely worked in the first half. It will be something we look at but it took the pressure off Keith, took the pressure off Tom and them guys.”