From the Treatment Room

Dunfermline Athletic physio has never encountered a run of injuries like the Pars have had this season.

Dunfermline Athletic physio Kenny Murray admits that he has never ever seen a run of injuries like he has experienced this season:-

"I have not been in the game a long time in comparison to other guys at the Club and physios elsewhere but I have never heard or seen of an injury run like this. Hopefully it is coming to an end."

Kenny who joined the Club 12 months ago from Celtic where he looked after the youths speculated over the source of the problems:-

"An uneducated guess would be that the training facilities are not helping us an awful lot. The boys haven't trained on grass now since October because the drainage at Pitreavie is real poor and it is really soft. In October a couple of boys got injured on the grass when there was no one near them, they just slipped.

"When you look at the majority of the injuries that we have got, very few of them have been caused by game related incidents. A lot of them are coming off the training ground and it is not the exercises or the coaching, it is the surface.

"One of the things I have noticed is the chopping and changing from hard surface to soft surface doesn't help either. You tend to find a lot of lower back, hips, knees and ankles suffer, especially with the older players in the squad. The Club know about that and it is not easy fixed. There's a lot of money involved in fixing these things. You only have to look at Celtic; they had a similar problem at the start of the season and they moved from Lennoxtown in to Barrowfield, but we do not have that luxury.

"I suspect that is where the answer lies with a lot of the injuries. Celtic's surface was too hard but when its like that you get achilles, ankle, knee, hip and lower back problems. They had 14 or 15 of them and that's what they think it was."

The 3g astro surface at Pitreavie is hard and shock absorption is harsh on the ankles, knees, hips and lower back as well.

Andy Barrowman gets the treatment - Friday 27th January

One of the busiest physios in Scotland confessed that it had been tough going:-

"Some of the hours I am putting in are just unbelievable but it is just the nature of the job, if the boys are injured they need treated. That's just the way it goes."

Amongst the injured there have been a couple of extremely frustrating injuries for Kenny:-

"More so for the players, they feel it very much more than me because they are not getting to play, the fans aren't getting to see them and the manager is not getting to use them. Everybody wants to know how they are getting on, particularly the longer term injuries. When you get near the end of the rehab process that is when your body starts to struggle a bit. You think you have reached the end of the rehab and think that you are going to be playing soon but then there are set backs and wee strains. That is part and parcel of football and it happens at every club and to the best of players."

Steven Bell and Nick Phinn have been out that long and they are experiencing set back after set back.

"It just prolongs their rehabilitation and it is so frustrating for them. It is so frustrating for the physio as well. Trying to predict how they are going to be and put a timescale on it is impossible."

It is well over a year since Steven Bell incurred his injury at Cappielow in November but Kenny is hopeful that he can get the 26 year old midfielder back this season.

"The psychological side is a big part of the physio's job to motivate the boys when things are not going well and they are getting the setbacks. Belly has worked his socks off for the best part of a year now and if there's anybody you want to see come back its Belly after he has been through all that."

Sports Scientist Ross Hughes helps but on a part time basis. Kenny continued:-

"I am the only one who is here full time but we use all the best consultants and all my contacts to pick their brains on rehab techniques. Asking what they would do, what have they had success with in the past - just use every resource possible to make sure that they get the best rehab."

Kenny would like a quieter second half of the season because at times he has had more players in the treatment room than there have been players out training.