The playing future of Parkes Spacemen captain-coach Dennis Moran is up in the air after the star half tore the achilles tendon in his left leg while playing in the Koori Knockout at Caltex Park last Saturday.
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Moran was part of the Narwan Eels team, but his campaign didn't last one match after he sustained the injury while scoring a try in their first game of the tournament.
The former Western Rams coach, who guided the Spacemen to a runners-up finish in this year's Group 11 competition, underwent surgery last Saturday night and will spend the next three months in a cast.
“The doctors have told me I'm done for six months. I'm in the cast for the first three months and then I'll be in a boot after that,” Moran said.
“I went over for the try and I heard something, but when I was walking back I could feel I wasn't walking properly and I couldn't run.
“I went off and got it strapped and tried to go back out, but I just couldn't run. It felt pretty weird.
“So I went to the hospital and had it X-rayed and that showed I had torn the tendon off the bone which put a bit of a dampener on things.”
Moran had been weighing up leading the Spacemen again in 2016, and while that may still happen, he admits he won't be rushed into any decisions.
He also concedes he's lucky to have such a supportive committee behind him as he goes about his recovery.
“The Club have been great about it. They've all sent me texts or called to see how I'm going," Moran said.
“There's nothing I can really say right now about what I will do.
“I've just got to wait it out and see how it goes over the next three months until I get out of the cast.
“I haven't really thought about whether I will coach if I can't play, or really anything apart from getting through these next few months and seeing how the achilles recovers.
“This will be the longest I've spent out of football or training, so it will be frustrating.
“But there's nothing I can do about that.
“I just have to give myself every opportunity to come back and hopefully I'll be able to.”
The injury took some of the gloss off the Knockout for Moran, but he conceded the event as a whole was a spectacular success.
“I thought it was a great event, and the Walgett Aboriginal Connection did a great job of organising the whole thing," he said.
“Dubbo Council had the grounds in great order and the facility there was perfect for that Knockout format because everyone was in the same complex and it had a real atmosphere and vibe.”