HAMMER BLOWS
Paddy lifts lid on his constant struggle to stay fit for Dubs
DUBLIN star Paddy Small has revealed how he has endured up to 20 hamstring injuries in the last five years as he tried to establish himself on the team.
Small joined his elder brother, John, on the Dublin squad for the 2018 season and has gone on to make 46 League and Championship appearances while winning four All-ireland medals, though not without much hardship along the way.
The 26-year-old also had an unremarkable underage career with Dublin, partly due to his being “plagued” by injuries.
“Hamstrings, definitely hamstrings,” he says when asked where he’s been worst hit. “I’ve accumulated 15, 20plus hamstring tears over the last five or so years.
“There’s a couple of Grade 3s in there as well. That’s certainly been the injury that has plagued me most, especially when it becomes chronic it can be quite challenging as a player.”
It hasn’t been plain sailing this year either as after starting the first five League games, he missed the next two then came off the bench in the League final against Derry and the Leinster quarter-final win over Meath before not featuring at all in Sunday’s routine defeat of Offaly.
“For this year there’s obviously a lot of games, there are a lot of lads there with higher loads, different knocks and niggles. I probably fell into that category for the last day.
“In terms of the entire season, it’s going to be a massive squad effort and we’re going to need everyone, and everyone going well, to give ourselves the best chance there.”
Injuries aside, Small is an unlikely Dublin senior player given that, by his own admission, his county underage career was “pretty much nonexistent”.
“If you go back to even under-14, I remember being dropped from my Féile team, and then under-16 I was in a competition called the Gerry Reilly Cup and there was a panel of 42 picked for that and I didn’t make the panel.
“Then in my first year at minor I didn’t make the squad, and then in the second year I remember our first Leinster game I didn’t make the squad for that either.
“Then into 21s I remember under Dessie [Farrell, inset] he actually dropped me and then brought me back onto the panel.
“In the second year I was injured, and then in the third year of 21s it changed to under20s so I actually didn’t get a chance.
“So very lacklustre would be a very nice way of putting it.”
But having impressed for Ballymun Kickhams, he was called up to the seniors by Jim Gavin and he’s been a starter for Dublin’s last two All-ireland wins.
Scoring the game-breaking goal in last year’s final win over Kerry makes all the hardship worth it.
“Absolutely. I suppose, on reflection, it’s those times when things might not be going your way or if you are injured, being resilient and making sure you’re staying on top of all the things you need to be staying on top of, coming back in the season, you’re hoping that those will all pay off.”