THE impact made by loan defender Cian Bolger has impressed injured Bury skipper Nathan Cameron.

The Shakers captain has been missing since February after succumbing to a knee injury and the back-line had put in some nervy performances in his absence.

But former Bolton Wanderers centre-back Bolger has added stability to the defence with a string of impressive performances since joining on loan from Southend two weeks ago.

Cameron told the Bury Times of his early career clashes playing for Coventry’s youth team against Leicester, where Bolger started, but he is now more than happy to have him on the same side.

“We had some tough games between us,” he said. “I’m glad that he’s come to a club like this and he was doing well at Southend, I’m not really sure what happened there but I’m more than glad that he’s joined our team and he’s turned out to be a good player for us.

“He’s doing really well. With the experience of Clarkey (Peter Clarke) alongside him it is only going to help his game.

“Hopefully he can keep playing and keep getting that experience until the end of the season.”

Cameron is expecting to miss the remainder of the season after damaging cartilage in his right knee at Shrewsbury in October.

He soldiered on until February to help push Bury towards League One safety.

The 24-year-old finally had an operation three weeks ago, and will probably not kick a ball now until pre-season.

Cameron said: “I started rehab about two weeks ago. I probably won’t be kicking a ball until pre-season so it’s early stages really.

“It is frustrating but that’s football. It happened back in October when we played Shrewsbury away. I got an injection after that game and that masked the pain for three or four months.

“After the Colchester game (on February 20) when the injection started to wear off the pain came back and I made the decision that it had to get sorted and I had the surgery.”

Cameron is hoping his team-mates can finish the job and secure League One survival during the final stretch of the campaign.

And the skipper is confident the foundations have been laid for the club to push on next year.

“Our main aim before the season started was to stay in this league and hopefully with six games left I think we are close to doing that,” Cameron added. “We started the first half of the season on fire and we got some massive wins at Sheffield United and Wigan in the League Cup.

“A lot of teams wouldn’t have expected us to get those sort of results.

“We have got some great memories and hopefully we can take the experiences into next season.”