GALWAY WON’T know until later today whether they have lost Michael Meehan for the rest of the football league or the rest of the football season – and for now manager Joe Kernan doesn’t want to even contemplate the latter.

Meehan was carried off 22 minutes into Sunday’s heavy defeat to Kerry at Pearse Stadium with a serious knee injury, but until Galway get the results of an MRI scan they won’t know exactly how serious the injury is.

“We tried to get in for a scan this morning, but were told it would be Tuesday,” Kernan explained last night. “So it is still fingers crossed. Michael was in a lot of pain afterwards.

“From what the doctors can say, it’s either one of two things. We’re looking at lateral ligament damage, with maybe some small cruciate damage. In that case we’re looking at six to eight weeks.

“Or else we’re looking at a cruciate tear, and, well, we just don’t want to go there. But we just won’t know for sure until we get the results of the scan.”

What Kernan meant by not wanting to go there is that a cruciate tear would effectively end Meehan’s football season, ruling him out for up to eight months.

Given his enormous impact on the team – illustrated again by the fact that he’d just scored Galway’s goal on Sunday when the injury happened – any long-term absence of Meehan could essentially define their season.

With Galway also on only one win from four league starts, and Meehan’s fellow forward Seán Armstrong also out for another four to five weeks with a hamstring injury, Kernan was understandably frustrated when assessing the bigger picture.

“We lost our way totally after Michael went off, totally, the same way really that we lost our way after Seán went off against Cork last Sunday. For some reason we just didn’t regain our composure. For the second half particularly on Sunday we just weren’t in it at all. They heads dropped really after Michael went off, and there was only one result after that.

“There is still the chance to win some points in this league, but the one thing you can’t plan for is injuries. I sat down last night and counted 10 players who are carrying some injury or another, including our two goalkeepers.

“Gareth Bradshaw is added to that list now as well with a calf strain. We’ve got Tyrone up next and we’ve seen them get back to winning ways. But I’ve said all along there are no easy games in this league. We’re just unfortunate that we seem to be getting one bad injury after another.”

Armstrong injured his hamstring against Cork last Saturday week, a game Galway went down narrowly by 1-19 to 1-17, but Sunday’s 2-16 to 1-9 defeat to Kerry has now seen then drop to the bottom of Division One on points difference, below Monaghan, Derry and Tyrone – who also have just one win from four games, but the marginally better points difference.

Meanwhile, Dublin football captain Paul Griffin is facing up to four weeks on the sideline after also sustaining a knee injury in Saturday night’s win over Monaghan.

He was only on the field about 10 minutes as a second-half replacement, when Monaghan’s Paul Finlay landed awkwardly on Griffin’s left knee, the Dublin player having just claimed a mark.

Although there was no serious ligament damage, Griffin was on crutches over the weekend and is now likely to miss the remainder of Dublin’s league campaign, unless they go as far as the final – which with four wins from four they remain well on course to do so.