Gardiner had an operation on his jaw on Tuesday and Mayo manager John O'Mahony will certainly miss his presence in the county's final Division 1A games against Kildare, Galway and Tyrone.

"Peadar is out for the rest of the league, which is disappointing for him and disappointing for us, because he was filling in a different role this year for us and he was doing very well in it," said O'Mahony.

"He was making that role his own really in many respects - but he'll just have to get on with his rehab now and we'll get him back as quickly as we can.

"In the meantime, we have to fight the battles we have to fight."

Mayo have only three points to show for their opening four NFL games and desperately need a win this weekend away to Kildare.

Their prospects have not been helped with Gardiner joining the likes of Trevor Mortimer (hamstring), Billy Joe Padden (ankle), Aidan Kilcoyne (shoulder) and Enda Varley (hamstring) on the injury list.

"We'll be aiming to win every game, but certainly as a minimum, we would probably need four out of the six points to survive," O'Mahony admitted.

"We'll be relying on just getting a performance and seeing where that takes us. Hopefully we can give an honest performance again, as we have done in all our games, and that'll give us a platform.

"It would be great to be able to take something home from Newbridge, and that's what we'll be aiming to."

Meanwhile, the Mayo County Board have been hit with a €5,000 fine after Kerry players had missiles thrown at them during the sides' recent NFL encounter at Castlebar.

It is understood that the decision by the GAA's Central Competitions Control Committee to impose such a fine was influenced by similar incidents that occurred at previous inter-county matches held at McHale Park.

The CCCC have also recommended that the Mayo County Board install a CCTV system at the ground so that future culprits can be identified.