By John Harrington

The sight of Diarmuid O’Connor playing two FBD League matches in January already with a third possibly to come against Sligo on Sunday is a real boost for Mayo supporters.

The 2015 and 2016 Young Footballer of the Year was curtailed last year by a niggling hamstring injury and wasn’t fit enough to start the All-Ireland Final against Dublin.

In a match of very fine margins, a fully fit O’Connor might just have been enough to get Mayo over the line first.

His hamstring troubles can be traced back as far as 2016, but it looks now like a new regime of rest, stretching, and prehab has finally put the issue to rest.

“Yeah, I think it's a mix of a lot of things,” said O’Connor yesterday at the launch of the latest phase of the GAA’s Healthy Club Project.

“Just a bit of time off and a bit of prehab and rehab as well with the physios. I'm stretching daily. I suppose time off would have been the biggest thing and I'm just feeling injury-free now.

“Touch-wood, that can continue on for the rest of the year.”

O’Connor only turned 23 last week, but he already has four seasons of senior inter-county football under his belt.

So even though he’s still one of the younger players in a mature Mayo panel, he feels there’s now more responsibility on his shoulders to show some leadership than there was when he first joined it.

“I suppose I'd have that bit more experience,” he said. “Just trying to push everyone on, not just for myself anymore, just looking at lads around me and seeing how we can improve each other.

“Sometimes they can give you advice that you wouldn't think of yourself. And just giving that advice to other players.

“The new players coming into the squad I know how daunting it can be for them coming into the senior squad for the first time.

“So just rallying around them and making them feel comfortable.”

O’Connor is in his final year of a degree in PE and Maths teaching in DCU, and is one of large number of Mayo footballers based in the capital.

They’ll train together away from the rest of the panel for most of the League campaign, but O’Connor doesn’t think that will make it more difficult for the Connacht side to challenge for the Allianz Division 1 title.

“I suppose with new lads now and lads working and studying in Dublin there would be about 13 or 14 lads,” he said.

“We train together in Dublin and the lads back home train. As the year goes on and after the league and coming into championship we’d go home during the week for training as well.

“But this time of the year the lads train together in Dublin and I don’t see that as an excuse to why we can’t challenge for the league. It’s a difficulty but we’ll try and work around it and just train together up here just as we would if we had the entire the squad at home.

“I don’t really think it’s an excuse not to challenge for the league.”