NEWPORT County defender Kevin Feely has revealed he almost lost a finger in the freak training ground accident that has sidelined him for two months.

The 22-year old from Kildare hasn’t featured for County since their 1-1 draw with Accrington back in October after a weight machine injury at Newport’s Spytty Park training base.

Joining the ranks of goalkeeper Dave Beasant (salad cream), Tony Pennock (lawnmower) and Steve Morrow (falling off of Tony Adams), Feely has been missing for a non-football related reason and admits it’s been a very testing time.

“It’s been an incredibly frustrating few weeks, it’s been complete and utter frustration and I know it seems like a ridiculous injury to be kept out for more than eight weeks with,” he said.

“But even four weeks ago when I expected to come back, I got more bad news from the hospital when they said it was too dangerous and it’s felt like setback after setback.

“It’s been a lot more complicated than reported, because to say it is a broken finger is putting it mildly. I nearly cut off the whole finger when it happened, I severed the tendon, I tore the bone clean off and they had to knit my finger back together with wires and do a tendon graft, it was quite a rough operation.

“I still have more or less no movement in the finger, but hopefully it’ll come back.

“I promise you, if it had just been a broken finger it wouldn’t have been an issue, I have probably broken every finger over the years playing Gaelic football so that would be nothing new.

“It’s the fact it required an operation, we’ve had to be so careful with it and I’m delighted it is over.”

Feely admits his injury is the sort that affected every aspect of his life.

“You forget how much you need all your fingers for day-to-day activities, in terms of things like having a shower and doing the washing up, it’s a total nightmare,” he said.

“It becomes such an ordeal and to go eight weeks using one hand, it’s ridiculous, it’s been like not having a finger.

“You use your hands in football as well and it’s taken some adjustment for me, but hopefully in the next few weeks the plaster will come off and the range of movement in the finger will come back.”

Feely admits his return is at least timely for the Exiles with a deal to re-sign Darcy Blake falling through and Andrew Hughes out for the season.

“It is a relief to have played, I got 90 minutes in for the reserves on Tuesday and I can’t wait to get back involved with the first team again,” he said.

“I know now psychologically I can do it, you can’t match the intensity in training so now I know I can get through a good intensity game. For my own head, that was really good.

“I have been training, for the last six weeks, but they’ve been very wary of putting me in a match situation, understandably.

“It’s nice to be back, especially as we are currently struggling for numbers at the back.”