Cian McBride eyes end to injury gloom against Cork 

Allianz today announced the extension of its sponsorship of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship for a further three years and unveiled the newest face of its 2025 campaign, 9-year-old Sheamie Garrihy, who will assume the role of Allianz’s first ‘Stop the Drop’ Reporter. Sheamie will take on a unique role, interviewing players, coaches, parents, teachers and sporting personalities from across the world of Gaelic Games to find out what sport means to them, what inspired them to keep going and how adults today can help children stay engaged in sport. Pictured at Croke Park in Dublin are, from left, Sligo footballer Pat Spillane Jnr, Allianz first 'Stop the Drop' reporter, nine year old Sheamie Garrihy from Clare and Meath footballer Cian McBride. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Former AFL player Cian McBride is gearing up for a big week or so with Meath as he attempts to nail down a place against Cork.

Meath will host John Cleary's side in Navan on Saturday week in Round 1 of the All-Ireland SFC, 13 days after the Royals' Leinster final defeat.

McBride, who spent four seasons at Essendon before returning in late 2023, didn't make the 26 for the provincial decider having been restricted to a single appearance this season.

But the 24-year-old midfielder is finally fully fit again after an injury plagued few years and desperate to show exactly what he can do.

McBride featured in 10 of Meath's 12 league and Championship games last year under Colm O'Rourke, making seven starts.

But a broken hand suffered while playing in the Sigerson Cup halted his progress, limiting him to one outing so far in 2025.

It was another frustrating injury setback following two separate foot fractures while in Australia and a pulled hamstring last year.

"I'm back fully fit now and that's great for me," said McBride at the announcement that Championship sponsors Allianz have extended their deal by three years.

"I'm just hoping I can stay as injury free as possible from now until the end of the year. The start of the year was a bit hairy for me with injuries but I'm just trying to find a bit of form now."

Eyeing the Cork game, McBride said he's keen to make the bench at least at Pairc Tailteann.

"It's a case of putting the head down and pushing as hard as I can," he said. "If that's to get onto the bench or into the starting 15, that's it. That's one of the controllables for me, it's within my control to put in a great 10 days and to show the boys what I can do. With a bit of luck, I'll be able to get back in."

McBride wowed AFL clubs with his athleticism and speed as a teenager. He was fresh off a Leinster MFC win with Meath in 2018 when he went Down Under with current Donegal star Oisin Gallen for trials.

A number of clubs were interested but Essendon offered McBride a contract on the spot after watching him blitz a 2km time trial.

"I landed back at the hotel after the 2k and they were there sitting with contracts," recalled McBride. "They just said, 'That's all we needed to see'. It was a bit crazy considering they hadn't seen you touch a ball or anything like that.

"But they were just thinking, 'We can make a player out of an athlete - you can't make an athlete out of a footballer'. That was their kind of approach to it."

Injuries and the impact of the pandemic undermined McBride's bid to make it in the professional oval ball game. By the end of his fourth year, he'd had enough.

"The love for the game was just...it was just gone, I just felt it had taken too much of a toll, just the whole Covid thing and the 'nearly theres', and then breaking the foot, and breaking the other foot," said McBride. "I just got riddled with injuries and I just never got the gra for it then.

"I said to myself when I first went there, whenever that spark goes, there's no point in trying to keep going because you know what you can come back to and get stuck into, the gaelic, which was something you'd wanted to do from day dot. Even just last weekend, being around Croke Park for the Leinster final, huge days."