Michael O’Neill: Working as a plasterer, pelvic bone trouble and Tyrone’s 2024

WE GO AGAIN: Michael O'Neill of Tyrone is tackled by Adrian Spillane of Kerry during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship quarter-final match between Kerry and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: John Sheridan/Sportsfile

Tyrone’s bolt to the 2021 All-Ireland title came like a runaway train. It was a dashing raid through the three prior Ulster champions, Kerry and finally Mayo in Croke Park that few saw coming. The same is true for what happened next. They, and Michael O’Neill, derailed.

In O’Neill’s mind what happened to Tyrone was a simple case of inconsistency. They played well in parts but couldn’t string performances together. His predicament is more complicated. It started as a pain at the top of his hamstring. He fought to run through it until doctors ordered an MRI.

“After the 2021 season I ran into a bit of a problem with my pelvic bone swelling and that kept me out for a long spell of 10 to 12 weeks,” the Ardboe clubman explains. 

“I seemed to get a good run once the end of the league came. Unfortunately, once I went back to my club, I tore my medial arch in my left ankle in the second club game. That put me out for a good spell.

“Trying to get back and play for the club in the Championship and then trying to get the pre-season with Tyrone, my body just kept breaking down. Unfortunately, there was a six-month period from when I played my last league game in Ardboe to the Monaghan Championship game last year.

“Missing that sort of football does have an effect on how you play because nothing replaces football, nothing replaces competitive football. I even knew myself (those) five or six months had an effect on how I was playing. The more games I played the more comfortable I got. I suppose the lesson is your best ability is availability.

“The more I stay on the pitch, the more confident I will be with playing.” 

At the time he found it tricky to articulate the issue. The MRI scan brought clarity. He could see it in front of him. The right side of the pelvic bone bright white, the left side smaller and black. 

O’Neill was an All-Ireland winner, a dependable performer at number 11 yet he wasn’t even nominated for an All-Star. Soon everyone would realise how important he was to the team. He missed the opening two games of the subsequent 2022 league, a draw with Monaghan and a six-point defeat against Armagh.

Tyrone have stuttered since. They won just three championship games out of nine. O’Neill pushed to get back and get them going but his body broke down again. In a desperate search for a solution, he tried to do more when the answer was to do less.

“Sometimes you just overshoot the runway. It is never really from a team perspective. It is always trying to fit in extras. Extra kicking and extra stuff. You go and kick a ball for half an hour and you don’t realise that after training you are under fatigue and the damage you could be doing.

“You are doing that two or three nights a week and you put in all these extra sessions and the next thing you start to break down.” He continues: “I remember the physio telling me there was a bit of swelling in and around it and once that area swells it tends to nip on groins and hamstrings and you start to run into bother elsewhere. It is about just getting off your feet and taking a bit of a rest. There is not much more you can do about it.

“It is about getting that injury controlled and starting to build a bit of strength, a bit of robustness around that area again.” 

He reassessed everything. Was his career a help or a hindrance? O’Neill is of a dying breed, a tradesman who plays intercounty football. He works as a plasterer with his Tyrone-obsessed father. A physical gig has its obvious cons. It also has its pros. The activity gives him leeway, an extra 500-1000 calories in the daily diet. He is grateful for the extra few spoons of peanut butter. The job works for him.

“I am really lucky I work with my oul fella. He lets me nip off an hour or half an hour earlier. It keeps things going.

“He is the one that keeps that ship in command and going. I just kind of turn up, work hard, go to my training, go home, sleep and ate. You would be working through pain. With any injury you get you still have to wake up and go to your work.

“Sometimes movement does it no harm. I don’t know whether sitting in the house or sitting at a desk would do me any favours either.” 

He is speaking before the start of their Dr McKenna Cup campaign. They welcome Jim McGuinness and Donegal to Healy Park on Sunday. O’Neill turned up in Garvaghey at the start of pre-season eager to get back at it and found a host of men feeling similar. 

He looks at the influx of a successful U20 side and sees a cohort with championship experience now. It is clear in how they train: “They know what they have to do.” 2023 was the year when his injury trouble stabilised. The ambition individually is also shared by the collective. Now he wants to kick on.

“There are stages there when you are going through them spells that you are going to yourself, you don’t know how you are going to get out of it. But good people around you, good physios around you, the right people talking in your ear, you kind of keep at it.

“This year I could have pulled 15 or 20 games together between county and club and it was a breath of fresh air for me. I loved every minute of getting to play that football on a consistent basis.” 

Back on track.