“This is a match where someone could get injured” - Bríd Stack tells her husband hours before she is nearly paralysed in tackle
“WE flew into Adelaide the night before the game, preparations weren’t what the club were used to because of COVID and the restrictions the club was put under. It was very frantic in the build up to the game, they were down some staff members, so even before the game I was a bit unnerved, and I remember saying it to Carthach, my husband, before the match.”
These were the words of 11-time All-Ireland winner, Rockchapel’s Brid Stack, as she recalled facing her first match in Aussie Rules football shortly after a hectic month of travelling, lock-downs and moving her family to Australia.
It was during her debut match with the Sydney Giants that she was tackled by Ebony Marinoff of the Adelaide Crows, a tackle which left Stack on the ground and badly injured.
It was later confirmed that she had sustained a stable fracture to her C7 vertebra but, luckily for her, had avoided being paralysed by millimetres.
Speaking on Tuesday’s RTÉ Radio One Today with Claire Byrne show, Bríd, who had been playing with her customary skill and intensity, spoke of the moments directly before and after the tackle by the Adelaide midfielder.
“I was only supposed to play three quarters, and I was put on for the fourth quarter,” she said.
“The injury happened in the very last minute of the fourth quarter.
“The ball was there to contest and I went in to get the ball against the other player.”
She described feeling an excruciating shot of pain up her back, her neck, and an equally similar pain in her arm, so much so that she thought her arm was shattered.
“I was expecting to look at my arm and see it in a couple of different places such was the nerve damage”, she said.
Bríd spoke of how the Sydney team doctor prevented her from moving even though she felt she could, but his actions saved her from suffering far more serious injuries.
“The team doctor that was there on site was absolutely outstanding – he held me in a completely prone position for 40 minutes before the ambulance came.
“I think, had he not held me still, I remember 10 or 15 minutes afterwards saying I’m grand, I can get up and walk off, he wouldn’t let me move.
“I definitely owe that man a massive debt: Dr Rob Buckley.”
Weeks after the injury, Bríd has just been advised she can remove a neck brace, but it’s questionable whether or not she will be able to play any further part in the season.
During the RTÉ interview, she expressed her disappointment over how the tackle was treated by the Australian authorities. Initially Marinoff was given a three-week ban for the tackle, but this was upended controversially on appeal.
“I know the position I was in at the time and the duty of care has to lie with the tackler at all times – I’ve been told that by experts with 30/40 years experience in the game.
“I definitely felt very aggrieved by the outcome of it,” she said.
Bríd paid tribute to the support she received from longstanding Mayo rival and now her team mate, Cora Staunton, following the injury.