Meath star Jordan Morris has revealed the extent of injury risk hanging over him following his swift return to the county fold ahead of the Leinster SFC final against Louth in May.
In the league game between the same two sides, Morris suffered serious injuries including a fractured tibia and a grade two ACL tear in his knee. It looked like his season would be over.
“The overriding feeling straight after the Louth game was that my year was done,” he said. “It took maybe a week and a half to get a full grasp of what happened. There would have been rehabbing three times a day, there would have been injections to get back on the pitch.”
“I was given eight weeks to get back on the pitch and I think I managed to get that back to six, just driving it on. I’m taking a bit of a risk, but with the year we were having, I couldn’t miss out on it.”
READ MORE
The corner-forward’s return has been a huge boost for Meath. He has contributed 2-12 since coming back, including 1-6 in the quarter-final victory over Galway. However, Morris is not joking when he says he’s taking a risk by carrying on.
“I was told there’s maybe a 40 per cent chance players who go back with a grade two tear can fully rupture,“ he said. ”It is in the back of your mind at times; you just have to manage it as much as you can.
“I’m playing with a risk . . . it’s probably a big enough risk, but there’s a 60% chance I won’t do it.”
Sunday’s match against Donegal at Croke Park will be Meath’s first All-Ireland SFC semi-final since 2009. The buzz is building steadily in the Royal County.
Morris isn’t feeling much extra pressure, partly because he lives and plays his club football in Kingscourt, just over the border in Cavan.
He said: “There’s plenty of excitement building up. Where I’m based at the minute in Kingstown, I’m probably not getting the benefit of it; there’s a lot of excitement in and around Navan and places like that. I’m probably on the better side of the fence this week, I’d say.”
There was similar hype in the build-up to the Leinster final, but Meath failed to capitalise on their semi-final win over Dublin and lost to Louth by two points.
The team has since added wins against Kerry and Galway. Meath appear to have grown stronger following the disappointment of the provincial final.
“It probably took us a few days to get the show back on the road,” said Morris of the defeat to Louth. “Everyone sat down, had a bit of a meeting and we were just like, ‘what do we want to get out of the year now?’. So we set our plans in place and we said, ‘look, we’re going to tear into it’.
“It’s grown us as a group massively. I think Louth taught us a bit of a lesson in the last five minutes about keeping the ball. It’s something we probably learned from them going into games at Croke Park.”
The appointment of Robbie Brennan as Meath manager ahead of this season has turned out to be a successful decision. The team has also benefited from the new rules. Morris credits both with helping him elevate his own game this year.
He added: “Robbie gives you the freedom of the park. He wants you to go out and try different things and if you make a few mistakes, turnovers, he’s not going to hold a grudge about it. He’s allowing me to stretch myself a bit more.
“The new rules blend into my game. Maybe in years gone by, if you go by a lad, you’d be coming up against another two or three. When you go by a lad nowadays, you might get a sight of the goal.”
It is clear that Meath football is in a very different place now compared to last year. They lost to Dublin and Kerry by wide margins in 2024, but this year they have beaten both counties.
Morris will be hoping Meath’s surprise summer takes them all the way to a first All-Ireland final since 2001.
