Moran: ‘I have had so many injuries now and I have got back from all of them’

BATTLE HARDENED: David Moran of Kerry, and his son Eli, lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Kerry and Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

From tearing a groin muscle off the bone to tonsilitis 14 days out from an All-Ireland final, David Moran is well acquainted with adversity but a third All-Ireland medal on Sunday will stand as testament to his resilience.

In April 2011, he tore a cruciate against Monaghan, an injury which Jack O’Connor still believes greatly impacted Kerry’s All-Ireland hopes that year. Ten months later history repeated itself while training with his club Kerins O’Rahillys. Then, believing the worst was behind him, he tore his retina in a challenge game against Laois in 2013.

Such experience of setbacks made it easier for him to return this season after that awful abductor injury sustained at the start of last December’s county final against Austin Stacks. "I didn’t realise it (the seriousness) at the time, to be honest. It did come off the bone, I was lucky I didn’t need surgery but it was a four or five-month injury. I thought I would just get back (quickly) but it wasn’t getting better and then I had a setback and that kept me out of the league, which I had been hoping to get back for. I was kinda hanging on the lads’ coattails a little bit at training. It was great to see them driving on.

“I have had so many injuries now and I have got back from all of them. Once you do the rehab, you get back. We have very good medical guys here and we had access to the best medical guys around and I was told that 'if you do this rehab, you will get back'. I just trusted that I would.” 

"A very bad bout of tonsillitis” floored him earlier this month but he didn’t miss much of the final preparations. “I only missed one session and that was after the Dublin game, I hadn’t missed a session up to that. And when you are in there, you are pushing as hard as you can, it was up to Jack and the lads to decide how to use me. I wanted to play as much as I could. Jack Barry getting injured just opened the door for someone. It (the final) wasn’t my best performance but it didn’t really matter because we won.” 

If injury hasn’t tested Moran, poor results and bad timing certainly has. “When I was a minor in ‘06, I was at the function when they (the seniors) won it. I was training in ‘07, wasn’t in the squad, and they won it. I came in in ‘08, and we lost the final. Then in ‘09, we won it. And I was thinking this is going to last forever. And then it didn’t.

“I had come in through that, so I know that it just doesn’t happen every year. Eight years is obviously a very long time in Kerry and having lost in ‘15 and ‘19, this was extra sweet.” 

Moran was shocked to learn that just he and three others of the current panel – Paul Geaney, Paul Murphy and Stephen O’Brien - were involved in the 2015 All-Ireland final defeat to Dublin. Having not come off the bench against them in the famous 2009 “startled earwigs” quarter-final, it was poignant for him to finally get one over them earlier this month.

“Yeah, it was sweet, it really was. They were a fantastic team, they still are, and it was just something the squad couldn’t do, couldn’t get over the line against them. If you win All-Ireland beating Mayo and Dublin along the way, given that they have contested the most finals in the last while, it is the way you want to do it.” 

Like he did every player of last year’s panel, O’Connor met Moran at the end of last year and outlined how much of a role he envisaged for the Kerins O’Rahillys man. “It was more that he was hoping that I would come back and he saw me as a big part of their plans. That was the long and short of it. It wasn’t like I was coming back to play wing-back. I was coming back to be a midfielder. That was the main thing, I had worked with Jack before, a lot of the lads hadn’t or had him as a minor, which is different. So it was different for them."

Fatherhood along with being a partner in Casey Stephenson Accountants brings its challenges in terms of time management, but the compacted intercounty season has helped the two-time All-Star. "They’re great problems I have. Playing an All-Ireland final and your son (Eli) is on the field and work is going well. It’s (the shorter inter-county season) definitely better for a player. You’re going back in with the club and potentially an off-season. It’s brilliant.”