JOHN Egan has broken Southend United’s defensive injury curse and looks set to line up at Morecambe tomorrow.

The on loan Sunderland centre-back came through his debut unscathed against Wycombe Wanderers last weekend before playing the full 90 minutes for Republic of Ireland’s under 21 team in their 2-1 defeat to Montenegro on Tuesday night.

As a result, Egan returned to training with the Shrimpers yesterday morning and assistant manager Dave Penney was thrilled the youngster managed to avoid picking up an injury.

“John came back in to the training ground in good spirits, with no knocks or injuries which is great news after the luck we’ve had with defenders just recently,” said Penney.

“We had Luke O’Neill and Cian Bolger both get injured on their debuts and we’ve still got Luke Prosser and Adam Thompson out injured as well which isn’t ideal.

“Adam actually got injured earlier on in the season while away on international duty himself and was out for nearly a month so there’s always that slight worry when your players go away.

“But thankfully John is fine, he’ll train with us fully again today and we’ll be preparing for the game exactly the same way as we did against Morecambe in the FA Cup earlier on in the season which means we’ll be getting the train up again.”

Blues triumphed 3-0 at the Globe Arena back in November, but Penney is expecting a far tougher test this time around , despite Morecambe’s poor form.

The Shrimps have not won since beating Fleetwood Town on Boxing Day.

Yet Penney believes that will make them dangerous to play against them.

“Fleetwood will be fired up to get back on track and in Jim Bentley they have a good manager who will have ready for the game.

“We will be fired up to do well too and our performances have been better than our results just recently but we’ll take a victory anyway we can to get ourselves going again this weekend.”

Penney added he does not expect Blues to strengthen their squad before kick-off tomorrow but they go in to the game with no new injury concerns.

Striker Lee Barnard is also pushing for a recall after impressing in a reserve team friendly at Colchester United in the week.