Eamon Fennell’s journey through the pain barrier to play football

Eamon Fennell lists out the injuries and setbacks he has experienced in the last two years and straight away you wonder why he’s still playing Gaelic football.

An All-Ireland winner with Dublin, in 2011, and St Vincents, in 2013, he did enough by his early 30s to walk away with all the boxes ticked. But club football is his drug and the 33-year-old can’t kick the habit so put himself through an at times torturous recovery programme after a litany of injuries.

First, he suffered a serious groin injuryin a club championship game against, as it happens, Ballymun Kickhams, Monday’s Dublin final opponents, in 2015. Surgery and rehab followed before Fennell returned in the summer of 2016 for a low-key game against Ballyboden but lasted just 20 seconds. This time, he ripped a hamstring straight off the bone.