By John Harrington

Offaly football team manager, John Maughan, says everyone involved with the set-up has been ‘shattered’ by the knee injury sustained by Niall Darby on Tuesday night at training which has ruled him out of Sunday’s Tailteann Cup semi-final against Westmeath.

The long-serving corner-back, 34, had been in excellent form all year and is one of the real leaders in the Faithful County team.

He's still waiting on the result of a scan, but the injury is suspected to be a ruptured cruciate ligament.

“It was quite devastating and we were quite shattered after it because it happened in front of the group during training,” said Maughan today.

“He's a guy that's highly regarded and highly respected. He's a former captain of the team and just a model of an inter-county footballer and probably his age profile, I suppose he's wondering this morning now has he many more opportunities to play in Croke Park, I don't think there will be for him.

“I togged out beside him on Tuesday night as I do regularly and he was just talking about eagerly he's looking forward to Sunday. So it's a devastating blow for him.

“I've been involved with a lot of teams down through the last couple of decades and I've never seen a player to be as affected with the situation. He was just absolutely shattered. There's very little you can say as consolation.

“But if there's any player that can come back, it's Niall Darby. You're talking about nine months depending on your accelerated recovery and he will look after himself exceptionally well because he's a model of an inter-county footballer. The guy is just unique.”

Darby’s injury isn’t the only disruption to Offaly’s preparations for Sunday’s match – a number of players also fell sick this week.

“We've a bit of a vomiting bug in the camp,” said Maughan. “Tomás Ó Sé, for the first time since he got involved, wasn't able to travel from Kerry, he was sick all day. We've had a few others, so I'm just hoping now that tonight might be a bit better.”