You can imagine the amount of stick Michael Fennelly shipped from his Kilkenny team mates for the amount of time he was spending on the physio table.
But without it he wouldn’t have been able to train, let alone play, at the highest level as he tried to manage the debilitating condition ankylosing spondylitis.
The All-Ireland winning skipper considers himself “blessed” to have the career he had and survived the “war zone” that he says every training session and game was.
When he tore his Achilles tendon in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final replay defeat by Waterford, it was another eye opener he could have done without.
“The tendon wasn’t healthy so they had to put in a new piece of tissue to strengthen it because it was in poor condition,” he explains.
“That will tell you in itself, the longer you go on the worse your body is going to get, the more serious injuries you are going to get.
“I had cartilage issues in my knees as well.
“I always wondered, ‘Am I better off knocking the county to have a longer club career?’
“I knew myself if I keep going through the county, going through these demands, hits and knocks and playing at this intensity, is it going to shorten my club career.
“I got two years out of my club (after inter-county retirement in 2018) and I would have hoped for more, but two years and two All-Irelands (above, win in 2018), I was probably very lucky to get that.
“I was happy enough to get it at that stage and cut ties.”
Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
