Eoin relieved Ken is back on the road

Last month, Waterford hurling hero Ken McGrath underwent open heart surgery in Dublin and brother Eoin had never seen him as nervous: "I got the fright of my life because he was as white as a sheet."

The procedure was successful and good wishes have been flooding in ever since.

How is Ken? “He is not 100%, he is a long way from it but he is improving every day. I only said to him the other day he is on the road to recovery and it’s going to take a while. I would rather see him on that road than the road he was on before Christmas. He is getting stronger and better every single day and he has more energy.”

Moving back home lifted his spirits. “He was cooped up in a hospital for 12 or 13 weeks. Any time you get out of a hospital, you are in better spirits. It’s after taking a bit out of him at the same time, an operation like that. It’s going to take time to get over it. He is in good spirits just to get home to his wife and his daughter. We have him in my mother’s house for dinner. He is happy to be back on the road.”

Eoin explains he had the good fortune of heeding the warning signs when his health deteriorated: “He had ongoing problems the last two or three years. They couldn’t really put their finger on it. Only last year when a couple of things highlighted that something might be wrong, he got a scan.

“The scan showed that he needed this operation. He could have soldiered on for a little while longer but he decided to go and get the operation and get it done. It was the only decision to be made.

“He was lucky enough that he got the warnings and the body gave him the warnings. It took him a while to do something about it mind you! Every fella is the same, you put it off and off. Luckily enough, my mother and father made him go to the doctor and get something. That kind of came to a head in December when he wasn’t feeling well at all.”

The news stunned him and shelved best laid plans of hurling together into the future for Mount Sion. “You think that it’s never going to happen. It was only a couple of years ago I thought that the two of us would be playing forever. Everything comes to an end. When you hear something like that, it puts it all into perspective.”

On June 27, the Ken McGrath All Star Challenge at Walsh Park brings together a collection of Munster and Leinster All Stars and though Ken is embarrassed by the generosity, Eoin is attempting to reassure him. “It’s like when Tony Browne said to me when he retired, ‘it’s like you’re dead and someone is speaking at your funeral.’ Sometimes it’s hard to hear but as I said to him, he has a lot of respect from people around the country. It will keep him going.”