Lenihan, who missed the whole of last season through a combination of ankle and Achilles injuries, was involved in the first half of Boro’s pre-season programme but was sidelined by a muscular injury sustained in the week before the final warm-up game against Deportivo La Coruna.
He has missed the opening two games of the Championship campaign, and will not be involved at Carrow Road tomorrow, but he has trained this week and could be involved in the squad that faces Sheffield United in eight days’ time.
“Darragh has trained over the last couple of days,” said Edwards, whose side will attempt to make it three wins from their opening three league games when they line up against Norwich tomorrow.
“The weekend will come too soon for him, but he trained for a good chunk of [Thursday’s] session and he’ll probably do the whole of Friday’s training. That’s the day before a game though, so that would normally be quite a light session anyway. It’s a real plus to have him back with us though and he’s not far away.”
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While Lenihan was able to step up his training programme this week, Boro’s medical staff continue to tread carefully when it comes to Riley McGree.
Like Lenihan, McGree suffered a succession of injury issues last season, and the Australian pulled up again during the first half of last month’s friendly defeat at Bradford City.
He has not played since, and while he continues to make decent progress, Edwards and the rest of Boro’s backroom team are determined to do all they can to avoid another recurrence of McGree’s muscular problems when he does eventually get the green light to return to full training.
“Riley’s a little bit further off,” said Edwards. “Like I keep saying with Riley, because he’s had one or two little injury instances now, we need to make sure that we work really hard with him so we’re comfortable that when he comes back in, he’s going to be okay with that.
“What we’re asking the lads to do is hard work. He came in and did that straight away, in the pre-season, and to be fair, that probably just asked a little bit too much of him a little bit too soon.
“We don’t want to do that again, so it’s just a case of building up his tolerance and resilience to a point where he can cope with what we’re going to be asking him to do.”
Boro’s players took part in an opening training session at the Riverside on Monday, with goalkeeper Seny Dieng being put through his pace as part of the goalkeeping group.
Dieng has been sidelined since December after undergoing Achilles surgery, but the Senegal international has now completed his recovery and is able to take part in full training.
He faces a battle to regain his number one spot though, with Sol Brynn having started the season with back-to-back Championship clean sheets and Tom Glover also having featured in Boro’s pre-season games.
“Seny’s trained for a week now, and that’s great,” said Edwards. “He’s been out for a long, long time, but he’s looking very good. He’s looking good, he’s confident, and he’s smiling and happy.
“He’s buzzing around the training ground, so that’s good. He’s worked incredibly hard to come back as quickly as he has, from the injury that he had. It’s a big plus that he’s back in full training.”
