‘I knew right away it was serious’ – McGrogan on how ‘freak’ ACL injury ended season

Derry defender Pádraig McGrogan has confirmed that his season is over after succumbing to a cruciate ligament injury during a “freak” training-ground setback.

McGrogan damaged his right knee in a training session on the Thursday after the new league champions had surrendered their Ulster SFC title on the back of a shock quarter-final loss to Donegal.

“It was the ACL so I won’t be taking part in much more for this season. There’s no hiding it now, it was done a couple of weeks ago and it just is what it is,” the wing-back (right) revealed, speaking at an Allianz launch ahead of Derry’s All-Ireland SFC group clash away to Galway on Saturday week.

“It was something I’ve done a million times. I went to turn inside, and I just knew right away that I’d done something.

“It can happen so easily. You never fear it, but I felt 100 per cent the whole way through training and it just happened suddenly, it was just a freak thing.

“I knew right away it was fairly serious. There was a bit of a crunch, and the pain let me know there was something not right.”

The Newbridge clubman hopes to undergo knee surgery in early June; then it will be a case of “getting on with the rehab and getting it done as best as I can”.

McGrogan won’t be seen in a Derry jersey before 2025 but, in the meantime, he will remain firmly embedded in Mickey Harte’s camp.

“I think I’d go mad otherwise,” he remarked. “You’re just used to being part of the group. I still very much see myself as part of the group, and I plan to be at nearly every session I can be at now.”

Reflecting on the shock nature of their Ulster exit – when three of the four goals conceded stemmed from goalkeeper Odhrán Lynch contesting long Donegal kick-outs only to be caught out of position – McGrogan suggested there will be an inevitable tactical tweak.

“It’s been a couple of weeks so plenty of time to digest it. It’s just another game, only we lost that one. Watching back the video is painful, but you can see exactly why we lost the game,” he said.

“When we start to make these adjustments, we just have to hope we learn from what we got wrong and get better from it.”

Asked about those adjustments, McGrogan expanded: “Well, we’ll have to adjust some way because if it’s not working then you have to change it. Clearly the kick-out tactic just didn’t go well for us that day. We were probably just over-aggressive and nearly silly in the end. But we’ve watched it back and we’re working on it.”