Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill has revealed that Seamus Coleman is "still pretty down" about suffering a season-ending injury during their recent World Cup qualifier with Wales.
The Everton defender suffered a horrific double leg fracture following a challenge from Wales full-back Neil Taylor which could keep him sidelined until 2018.
O'Neill admitted that the injury is a "major blow" for everyone concerned, but is confident that the 28-year-old will bounce back from the incident.
"The first reaction is that you know you have lost a great player for a start. You know the sort of pain that he's going to be going through, obviously the immediate pain and then his recovery. It's a major blow, not only for the player, but obviously for his family, people who were at the game watching that. But as Seamus mentioned to me the other day, he just said that it has happened now, he can't do anything about it and it's what he does now in the next few months that is very, very important," he told reporters.
"I think he's just beginning to come to terms with it. I saw him yesterday and he's still pretty down about it. He's not in as much pain, the operation went very well and it's just a matter of coming to terms with it. Even the result on Friday evening was secondary. It's a bad blow for the player, who has been terrific for us. He's having a wonderful season at Everton and he has been missed around the place over the last couple of days too.
"I think he's very positive and he will get into recovery mode as quickly as possible and then it's up to him. Before I went to Celtic, about five or six months before that, Henrik Larsson had a very serious injury and he recovered magnificently and the injury didn't bother him again from then until the end of his career, so players have recovered. Great players have broken their legs and come back, and Seamus, obviously it's very early for him to start considering all those things, but he is positive.
"Naturally, as I mentioned earlier at the start, he's down, as he would be as the realisation that he is going to be out of action for quite some considerable time has dawned on him, so those type of things don't just take five minutes to get over. But he's very strong, he's got a lot of good people around him, his family is very, very strong as well and he is positive that he will be back and as good as ever."
Ireland are back in action on Tuesday when they host Iceland in a friendly.
Barney Corkhill
