Club game takes over for Treaty
hurley and a few bits and his mother rang me, all apologetic, saying she never knew I wanted the hurley back.
“So we arranged to meet but then the lockdown happened so they still have it but hopefully I will get it back at some stage during the summer.”
Finding context around the coronavirus isn’t too great a challenge for the Tipperary star, however, as he watches his girlfriend Aoife, a physiotherapist, go out the door to work in Limerick University Hospital every day.
“It helps me with perspective. You are hearing stories of people doing different things and complaining about sport not being on and asking when is the GAA going to return.
“I would love for the GAA to return as soon as possible because I am really missing playing the game but the reminder, every time is Aoife is going to work and coming home from work… just that daily reminder there is a bigger issue here and we need to roll back and have perspective.
“We all need to do our bit to try and keep each other healthy and not affect, whether it is family or community members, friends or whoever you are coming into contact with that this is an unbelievably strange time and we all need to do our bit until it is safe to go back to whatever is normal.
“I think there is going to be a new normal but we are not quite there yet and we need to stick it out now.”
But though Maher’s
Leap Gym and Fitness
Studio is now closed, there are upsides too.
“We have been talking to friends online more, what this has done has made me realise the value of time a little bit more.”
EXTENSIVE damage to his knee in 2018 gave rise to fears that Brendan Maher wouldn’t play at the highest level again.
The Tipperary star suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in the Munster Championship loss to Clare two years ago (below) though he has revealed there was more to his problems than just that and he doubted whether he could return.
“I did,” admitted the 31-year-old. “It wasn’t something that was publically spoken about at the time.
“Obviously, the ACL was the main part of the injury but I had meniscus damage, tendon damage and all these other little things but we decided not to say.
“I can still remember what the doctor said to me. He rang me after the MRI, I got the injury on the Sunday, scan on the Tuesday morning and the results came within hours so he rang.
“I said, ‘What’s the news?’ and he kind of sniggered and laughed and just said, ‘Your knee is a bit of a mess’.
“Those were his exact words and I thought, ‘Well this is great,’” he laughed. “I knew it was bad but I didn’t know how bad and to be hit with that was a big blow.” Although he returned to have a stellar 2019, there were setbacks along the way.
“I hyperextended it running. That was maybe three or four months in when I gave it a little hyper-extension. It gave such a crunch, I thought, ‘I am after doing it again.”
A RETURN to the golf course this week could be the only competitive action this summer for Limerick hurler Gearoid Hegarty.
The St Patrick’s and Limerick hurler has had to shelve his combative instincts in recent weeks, but as Covid-19 restrictions ease, he reckons his usual track of the Gaelic Grounds will be replaced by Castletroy Golf Club as courses reopen around the country.
While Limerick’s defence of the All-ireland title didn’t go as planned last year, 12-handicapper Hegarty was named as Castletroy’s Golfer of the Year and he can’t wait to get back to working on that tally.
“I wouldn’t say I’m not cracking up due to the lock down, but I have been looking forward to the golf courses opening up. I have a golf course about a kilometre away from me only,” said Hegarty, who debuted for Limerick hurlers in 2017.
“I’m a big golfer, I love it. I absolutely love it. I’m going to play a good bit of golf for the next few weeks anyway until we have another announcement about what the next plan is for the GAA and the summer. Unfortunately I’d say it could be golf only for the summer for me.
“There are a load of the Limerick lads that play. A good few of them are golfers, but there isn’t many that are members here. Only myself and Barry Nash and one or two more are members of the Castletroy Golf Club. I’d say it will be members only for a while before things settle down again.
“But hopefully they’ll be able to open up the rest of the courses too.”