Injury setback likely to keep Earley out of Kildare’s plans

Dermot Earley has all but ruled out playing for Kildare in 2013 but hasn’t accepted that his inter-county career is over.

The Sarsfields clubman, who turns 35 in July, has not started a championship match for the Lilywhites since the 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final against Meath due to knee injuries.

Earley then hurt his back in the warm-up to Kildare’s league game against Dublin at Croke Park in March and had to go for two surgeries, with manager Kieran McGeeney initially fearing the midfielder might struggle to walk again.

“Well to be honest I was at a stage where I couldn’t straighten up and then after the first surgery I still had pain walking,” Earley explained at the launch of the newly refurbished GAA Museum.

“So I was concerned and I spent a week not moving on the couch. I couldn’t move and I was fairly worried. We all love sport, we put ourselves out there but at the end of the day, you have to be able to walk properly. But thankfully that was sorted and I’m fine now. But it did give me a bit of a scare.

“I’m still not really making any decisions [about retiring from inter-county football] but I don’t think I’ll be trying to get back to play football this year, to be honest, with Kildare.”

The recent retirement of Sligo’s Eamon O’Hara now means Earley is now the longest-serving footballer in the game — but the Kildare man can’t see that lasting.

“Well, it’s a nice auld accolade to have but I don’t think I’ll be having it that much longer, to be honest. We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go but I’ve had a very frustrating last couple of years, they haven’t gone the way… every player would like to finish on their own terms and finish on the playing field, that’s what we want to do.

“But I just haven’t had the run I’ve wanted to have in the last couple of years. Sometimes, you know, the body tells you things.

But the other side of it as well is that maybe I’ll go on but I think your health is your wealth.Earley also explained the injury occurred in rather innocuous circumstances.

“In the warm-up here actually against Dublin I went to pick the ball up and I just felt a twinge in the centre of my back and it spasmed,” he said. “But I got a fierce pain into my glute, in my calf and then right down into my big toe.

“And it’s just a bit of sciatica and with injuries you’re always trying to hope, I said I’d give it a week and see what happens. It just got progressively worse over the next two weeks. I had a couple of injections into it and it didn’t work out, it made it worse and it turned out I was going to need surgery.

“The first surgery didn’t work, I still had pain, so they went back in a week later and thankfully they got it out and I haven’t felt pain since. But just the whole six-week occasion did take its toll on me, certainly on my right side.”

It’s quite clear how concerned the midfielder is about the nature of his injury when quizzed about whether he has any targets for returning to training.

“No, I haven’t, because I really don’t want to push this. I want to feel it, really, how it is each week. But to be honest I think there comes a time when enough’s enough.”