Town boss Kieran McKenna admits it would take an incredible recovery for George Edmundson to make Saturday’s home game against Portsmouth having sustained an ankle injury this evening, while skipper Sam Morsy will be assessed having picked up a hamstring problem.
"A disappointing aspect of the night,” McKenna admitted when asked about the injuries. "George has got a swollen ankle, it looks like he’s picked up some ankle damage so we’ll have to assess how bad that is and Sam’s was a hamstring, so again we’ll have to assess that over the next few days.
"Disappointed for those two, but on the other hand pleasing for Cam Burgess, he’s been somebody I’ve spoken about a few times because he genuinely has been training to a really high level, has been contributing a lot to the group, has been contributing in meetings, has been driving and leading training sessions and has been waiting for his opportunity.
"Disappointed for George but for Cameron obviously he’s done everything he can to prepare himself to step into the team. He stepped in well for the last 30 minutes or whatever it was and he gives us another good option.”
Is he ruling Edmundson out of Pompey’s visit? "I can’t rule him out yet but I’ve seen him downstairs and he’s got a very swollen ankle so it would take an incredible recovery between now and Saturday.”
McKenna has named the same back three in all 14 of his matches in charge - with the same trio also lining up in interim manager John McGreal’s final game - but he says he’s not too worried about the prospect of having to make a change at the weekend.
"It doesn’t worry me, no,” the Northern Irishman insisted. "There’s not too much that worries me thankfully. We train as a squad, we don’t train as a team. Obviously it’s been a consistent selection at the back but we train positionally as a squad every day we’re at Playford Road.
"Cameron, for example, has been training right the way through the last two months in that position on the patterns of play that we work on, on the defensive moments and the pressing triggers that we work on, so I think he’s fully in tune with what we’re doing and I think he showed that when he came on, he settled straight into the team.
"It’s obviously been a boost that we’ve had that consistent selection but we knew over the course of the number of games that we had that we were going to pick up injuries and I knew at some stage that we would lose one of the defenders through injury or suspension or whatever it might be.
"That’s why people like Cameron have been working so hard behind the scenes and, as I said before, it’s very disappointing for George but I’m happy for Cameron that he now gets his opportunity.”
In addition to Morsy and Edmundson limping off, Dominic Thompson appeared to be feeling the knock he suffered at Fleetwood on Saturday, while Wes Burns and Luke Woolfenden also seemed to pick up niggles in the second half.
"I know the effort that the players have put in,” McKenna reflected. "The effort that they put into Saturday, the effort that they’re putting into training, the travel that we’ve had over the last couple of weeks and the heavy pitches that we’ve played on over the last couple of weeks.
"It’s a fact of football that that can catch up with you, you’re going to get some injuries at times and I’m proud of the effort that the players have put in.
"It’s part and parcel of the game, they’re a professional group, I know they’ll recover very well between now and Saturday and I also know that the squad is strong, I’ve got faith in the squad.
"The ones who haven’t been playing so many minutes have been working hard behind the scenes and we’ll hopefully recover as many players as we can for Saturday."""But I trust whichever team we go out there with against Portsmouth will all know their jobs, all know what we expect from them on the pitch and will be ready to try their best to help the team.”