Months before climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand as an All-Ireland champion, Brendan Maher was struggling to finish training sessions.
Tipperary's towering centre-back suffered a nasty cruciate ligament injury in June last year - making his return earlier this year before helping his county to Liam MacCarthy glory in August.
And Maher has admitted he had doubts that he'd ever feature for the Premier men again over a hard winter.
"I always believed I could get back, but in saying that I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times when you’d have doubts in your head," Maher revealed.
"You’d have some tough days. I stuck to the recovery process – there would be times when you were making good progress but then there would be days when the knee would get sore, and you’d find yourself thinking ‘the week before it was better than it is now.’, so you’d have doubts every so often.
"When you are away from the group and training alone, I found it hard. There were some sessions where I wouldn’t finish them. When you don’t finish a session and you feel shit.
"Mentally that was very difficult, there was about a two-week period where that was happening, so I decided I had to do something. I rang our physio Paddy O’Brien and told him I was struggling with training on my own.
"I asked him if he would supervise my sessions, just to have somebody there and he then suggested training with Seamie – who was coming back from a bad injury. So we trained away together in a local gym and that was a major help for me".
Maher made his return on March 16 in a home defeat to Dublin, and he compared being thrown into the action to 'starting all over again'.
He said: "Around the end of October then or start of November I met Cairbre, our new strength and conditioning coach. He brought a group of us in training then, other lads coming back from injuries and pre-season. We were in Thurles and that was a real lift because you felt you were kind of back involved again with the group.
"I met Ray Moran on February 13th for my six review and he gave me the go ahead to return to play.
"So two days later, on February 15th, I played in an in-house training game. I then came on as a sub in the league quarter-final against Dublin in mid-March.
"I was very nervous beforehand, I went on with about 20 minutes left and it felt like starting all over again. Luckily the first puck-out that came my way I caught it above my man, that settled me and got me back into it straight away.
"I was delighted to be back playing and to have come through the last 20 minutes or so".
On the way to picking up his third Celtic Cross, the Borris-Ileigh man was tasked with big man marking jobs against the likes of Limerick, Wexford and Kilkenny - which boosted his confidence.
"I did feel pressure in some of the man-marking jobs I was asked to do, essentially picking up the opposition’s main man.
"But more than anything I looked on those as a confidence booster, that I was the one chosen to do it, trusted by the management to do it.
"It was a very enjoyable year, it was a joy to be part of the group".
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