Kilkenny rues ‘March madness’ of cruciates
It’s almost become a ritual for players to be struck down with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear around that time of the year and the Dublin star, who damaged his knee in the league game against Kildare last month, admitted it’s a period of the season which they could learn to dread the prospect of picking up the injury.
“Yeah, it was weird – it was March madness. You had Cathal Carolan, Tony Grey from Waterford did his last week, Eamon Wallace, the Gooch, Kevin O’Brien … it was a bit mad, the amount of people who did it.”
Over-playing has been cited as a reason for the multitude of such injuries and while that could apply to an U21 and college dual player like Kilkenny he begs to differ.
As he points out about Cooper who ruptured his ACL in February: “Colm wouldn’t have been playing college football. It was weird, seeing the amount of players kept piling up with injuries. You’d never wish it on anyone.”
Having had the corrective surgery done last Tuesday week, Kilkenny is philosophical about the setback. “I’ve another 10 years ahead of me playing GAA, so I suppose you’re bound to get one bad injury at one stage.
“It was just an awkward kind of situation, but I suppose it will be a nice break and I’ll get to develop other parts of my life and try and come back stronger than I was.”
The Castleknock man, who hopes to return to action with his club in October, will travel with his Dublin U21 team-mates to Portlaoise on Saturday as Dessie Farrell’s side face Roscommon in their All-Ireland semi-final.
“I was lucky enough to win an U21 All-Ireland under Jim (Gavin) two years ago but I suppose this is my age group. We would have come up through with Dessie, having lost an All-Ireland minor I would have loved to have rectified that. But I suppose it will be good being involved with the set-up. “
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