Speaking at today's All-Ireland SFC launch, O'Mahony said: "Ciaran McDonald is the most famous injury in Ireland at the moment, and the situation with him is that he and our medical team have worked extremely hard over the winter to get him right.

"We had an option of an operation which would risk putting him out for the year so it wasn't really an option. We are trying to rehabilitate him otherwise and there have been a few attempts.

"It hasn't worked yet, but we or he won't be giving up on it and he is, at present, doing some light training and we will see where that takes us."

O'Mahony, who watched his side lose the NFL Division One final to Donegal last week, believes that patience is the key.

"We will be as patient as we have to be and I would hope that we will have an improvement from Ciaran during the Championship. The Galway game is probably too soon but we will see how it goes."

There is some positive news however as O'Mahony, a General Election candidate for Mayo, revealed that injured duo Trevor Mortimer and David Brady "are close to being right and probably if we had another week before the league final, we would have had them for that game."

The Mayo supremo also has high aspirations for a return for young midfielder Ronan McGarrity, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer last month.

"I would be hoping to have Ronan back at some stage during the Championship but not for the first round," admitted O'Mahony. "Hopefully his treatment will go well."