NEWPORT County AFC’s hotshot striker Aaron O’Connor will go under the surgeon’s knife and miss the start of the new season.

As revealed in yesterday’s Argus Sport, O’Connor had a scan with a specialist on his long-standing groin injury on Thursday night.

Despite a summer of rest and rehabilitation, the injury flared up at Taunton Town on Tuesday evening, despite last season’s 20-goal top scorer bagging a 38-minute hat-trick in Newport’s 6-0 romp.

The Exiles managed the injury last term through a course of injections and spells without training – which did allow O’Connor to feature in the play-offs – and believed a summer of rest would cure the issue.

However, that hasn’t proved to be the case, as O’Connor explained.

“On Thursday evening I went for a scan as I had been in discomfort from the hard pitch on Tuesday,” he said.

“The specialist has seen a few things and an operation appears the most likely option, it’s looking that way.

“It’s an ongoing problem for me and it’s come to the point where we all just want it sorted once and for all.

“We’ve been managing it, but if we keep doing that, there is always the chance it’ll flare up again.”

O’Connor admits his rude form – in his last two appearances he has scored at Wembley to get Newport promoted to the Football League and scored a hat-trick – makes the injury all the harder to take.

“The issue has been around for months and months now and I’ve tried to play through it,” he said.

“I can manage it and the evidence has been there that we’ve done that, because I feel like I’m still playing pretty well and looking quite sharp, certainly played at quite a decent level anyway.

“I want to be relied on though, I want to be back to where I was and with this situation it’s annoying, it’s not possible.

“I want to give myself a chance of being 100 per cent fit and raring to go. It’s a blow to miss the start of the season, but there is plenty of time to make up for it.”

O’Connor says the length of recovery time depends on each individual patient, having been told he could be out for anything between two to six weeks.