MAYO GAA star James Carr is set to miss the start of the All-Ireland SFC group campaign after suffering yet another injury setback.
The young forward has undergone knee surgery to repair damaged cartilage which is set to leave him on the sidelines for even longer.
Carr has had an injury-hampered year where he missed most of the league in January and February.
His only senior appearance in 2024 was coming on after 50 minutes against Monaghan in Mayo’s final league match.
Carr was not named in Kevin McStay’s squad for their Connacht SFC final defeat to Galway having already missed the clashes with New York and Roscommon.
Mayo GAA confirmed the fresh setback saying: “James Carr had a knee procedure today following assessments by the Mayo Medical team for a meniscal injury.
“He will commence rehab shortly and we look forward to his return in the coming weeks.”
The procedure means that Carr is a certain absentee for Mayo’s opening clash with Cavan on Saturday week.
Mayo were also without their captain Paddy Durcan for the Galway defeat and McStay said afterwards that it is a calf-injury.
He said: “We have to have our team in on a Thursday, but we train on a Thursday night. We thought he would make it; he just failed his fitness test.
“It was just a bang on his calf, we think we could probably have played him for a while but the bigger picture is that there are three big round robin games so then do you risk him and lose him for two/three games?
“Let’s see if that was a good decision in a few weeks’ time.”
Despite losing the Connacht final, Mayo have some consolation in having a potentially more favourable path in the Sam Maguire series.
After the Cavan clash, McStay’s side will face Roscommon and the winners of the Leinster final between Dublin and Louth.
However the boss insisted:
Still, manager Kevin McStay insisted: “Disappointing. We were mad to win it.
“I hope you all understand now that there was no one lining up easy groups or difficult groups when you see the stuff that was going on there.
“Both teams were committed to winning the Nestor Cup but it has eluded us now.
“We were patchy. We never got a flow going. We never got to a place where we were comfortable in the game.
“We were good for ten minutes and then left them back into it instead of padding out the lead.”