PAUL MANNION COULD be in the frame to feature for Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club football final in a fortnight.

The Dublin star has missed their club campaign since last September, limping out of a county quarter-final win over Cuala and subsequently requiring surgery on his ankle.

After their semi-final win over Kerry’s Kerins O’Rahillys today propelled them back to the decider, manager Robbie Brennan revealed the All-Ireland winner may be a playing option against Derry’s Glen on 22 January.

“Paul is close. He’s running and he’s kicking and I think everybody is happy with where he’s at. It’s just whether he’s able to go back in, he hasn’t played since (September) so it’s a big ask. But he has another couple of weeks, the final was always possibly the plan for him timewise, but if he can play or not is another thing.

“And obviously as I keep saying, he’s got the inter-county season ahead of that and it’s only one game for us so he’s got to balance all of that, so we’ll see how the next two weeks ago.”

Paul Mannion leaves the pitch after the Dublin quarter-final with an injury. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO

Mannion missed last February’s All-Ireland final loss to Kilcoo with a knee injury that was sustained in their 2021 Leinster semi-final success over Portarlington.

The memories of that dramatic loss to Kilcoo when Jerome Johnston pounced for a match-winning goal at the end of extra-time remain fresh in the mind of the Kilmacud manager.

“Well if you seen my screensaver, it’s the Kilcoo boys lifting the cup, so for me it probably is (still there). (I put it there) about a week after they won it. It’s been there since, just in case I forget.

“But once we got over the holiday it doesn’t really come up (with the players) to be honest with you, because there’s not much time to think about.

“I said to the lads inside, all they’ve done is give themselves an opportunity to be the first team to lose back to back All-Irelands in the club, so that’s all we’ve done at the minute! Hopefully it won’t be, but that’s the situation we are in at the minute.”

Brennan was forced to endure an anxious finale to their semi-final success, Kerins O’Rahillys kicking four of the game’s last five points and pressing hard for a goal to draw the game in injury-time.

“It looked like it was déjà vu all over again! Which is obviously a problem for us that we need to look at. Thankfully, it didn’t so we’ll get a crack the next day.

“It’s the same thing every time – you’re nearly expecting it to go in at this stage. Maybe that’s a positive, that it didn’t go in. No, it’s worrying. To allow ourselves be in that position was the most disappointing aspect. We were in control, took the foot off. To be fair to O’Rahillys, they came back into it. They’re a good team. Plenty to work on.

“Coming in too easy is never a good thing and we haven’t been fully tested maybe since Na Fianna in the Dublin final. So maybe it’s a good thing. We’ll only know in a couple of weeks.”