by Luke Cawdell

Mark Stimson will be sweating on the fitness of a trio of Gillingham players following Saturday’s costly trip to Millwall.

Central defenders Garry Richards and Darren Dennehy both came off injured during the 4-0 defeat and 17-goal striker Simeon Jackson, who had just returned from a hamstring injury, hobbled off at full-time after a crunching tackle from Millwall captain Paul Robinson.

Richards will be manager Stimson’s biggest concern as he damaged his ankle in a collision with Gills keeper Alan Julian. He went to hospital for scans immediately after the game.

"It’s not looking too good," said Stimson (pictured), who has been thrilled by the impact Richards has had since being recalled to the team.

"He has been very good recently and at Millwall you need characters like Garry Richards because they are proper men, just like the two Millwall centre-halves were, they were outstanding. They are the sort of proper players you want in your team to make things difficult for the opposing forwards."

Dennehy failed to appear in the second half at Millwall after suffering from concussion.

"Hopefully in a couple of days he should feel a bit better," said Stimson. "We have to wait for the doctor’s report and hopefully it won’t be too severe.

"Modern day rules say that if it is concussion you have to miss a certain amount of time, but he didn’t pass out, so hopefully he won’t be out for too long."

Jackson, meanwhile, had to play the full 90 minutes as Stimson had used three substitutes.

Stimson said: "He picked up a nasty whack late on in the game from the centre-half and he has got a bad dead leg.

"We thought about taking him off with five minutes to go and playing with 10 men, but we said to him to try and get through it. Whether he recovers in time we will have to wait and see.

"Sometimes a dead leg can be quite painful for a few days."

Waiting on standby to replace Richards will be Josh Gowling – who replaced Dennehy on Saturday for his first appearance in two months.

"If Garry is injured then Josh can fill into that slot quite easily," said Stimson.

"We would like to have Garry available for the games after that because there are some big strikers to play against like Holt, Beckford and Lambert. If you’re not a man you can get found out."