The slow arduous road to recovery – a familiar assignment for Colm O’Neill

If you didn't laugh, you'd punch a window. After Conor Counihan pulled stumps on his time as Cork manager in August, Colm O'Neill left it a few days before ringing to wish him well. For all the shelling Counihan took from the outside world, his players had a deep and genuine fondness for him. None more so than O'Neill.

Counihan became Cork manager in February 2008. Six weeks later, then 19-year-old O’Neill tore the cruciate in his right knee playing for junior club Ballyclough in north Cork. He tore it again in March 2011 and missed the rest of the year. And when the left knee went in March of this year, that was another season written off .

“So when I rang him up to thank him, what could you do only joke about it?” O’Neill says. “He was there for five years so I said, ‘Thanks for the two years I was involved anyway!’ I was on the sideline more than I was on the pitch. I must be the most experienced waterboy in the country.”

Making lemonade
His mood is chipper enough over lunch in Cork city and he talks a lot about taking positives and there being worse things in life to have to deal with. "'Tis only sport, like," he shrugs at one point.

“It would be worse if you had a terminal illness or something.” And yeah, it would be. But you know life has given you lemons if you’ve got to reach for not-a-terminal-illness as a way of making lemonade.

Plenty of players with badly swollen knees have shrugged and reasoned that it would be worse if the cruciate was gone. Three cruciates snapped before your 25th birthday is about as rough as going gets.

At least this one was his left knee. Had his right knee gone again, he would almost certainly be ex-Cork footballer Colm O’Neill by now.

His surgeon Dr Tadhg O’Sullivan’s way of getting him to look on the bright side initially was to inform him that they could be having a very different conversation. As it was, he could think of it as being like the first time all over again. Well, sort of like the first time.

Running out of parts
One downside of having gone through it twice already was that he was running out of body parts. The operation to repair a torn cruciate is actually pretty simple – "I'd say it's like doing a filling now for Tadhg," he says – and it involves taking a graft from somewhere else in your body and substituting it in for the ligament. The first time, they took it from his right hamstring.

Second time, left hamstring. A third time and the hamstring cupboard was bare. So they took it from the tendon just below his left kneecap. All of which has slowed his recovery a touch.

“The other two times I was probably further down the road by this stage. Because it was a different procedure, not only is it sore from the cruciate, there’s some pain around where the knee tendon was . .

“But I’m happy enough with everything. You’d be comparing it with the last two to see where you’re at alright. I’m definitely a bit behind but if I know anything about it at all, it’s that you can’t rush it.

“It’s grand to say it takes nine months. But that sounds like it’s a matter of parking it, throwing your gear bag in the corner and coming back in nine months. But it’s just a long, hard road. There’s no quick fix.

“You actually feel okay after a few months and maybe five months in you start feeling strong again. But you can’t tell nature to hurry up. You can’t beat it either. You have to let it heal and let it get back to the point where you can trust it again.”

Inch by little inch
His wingman through it all has been Colin Lane, the Cork physio. Lane put him back together in 2008 and again in 2011 and again this time around.

They have sessions at first light most mornings and again some afternoons. Bit by little bit, inch by little inch.

“Colin has been unreal for me,” says O’Neill. “I really couldn’t overdo it talking about him. He got married last week and we’d a good old day out at it. But I’d say he’s seen nearly more of me than he has seen of his wife. And I’m the same with my girlfriend. He’s been incredible really.

“He was flying out for his honeymoon last Sunday and his flight was going from Shannon at 12. Yet he still saw me that morning at seven o’clock. I’d have been happy if he’d gone – I’d have had the morning off. But he was there. The morning of his honeymoon and he was there to help me.”

O’Neill’s dedication is something to behold too. Down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning in November, patient and determined in the face of random cruelty. He’s done his research. So has Lane, so has O’Sullivan.

Nothing links the three injuries other than rank bad fortune. It’s not the boots, it’s not the surfaces, it’s not anything to do with his body shape.

The only common denominator is that all three injuries have happened within three weeks of each other in the calendar. He jests when he says he's going to tell Brian Cuthbert he won't be available for selection until after March is out. Last time, he was back for the McGrath Cup in January.

This time that won't be possible. "Naturally, you're going to have bad days. And Jesus, I've had more bad days than anyone. Especially with this one because I kind of knew the time frame or what I thought the time frame was supposed to be. And there were times I would have been thinking, 'How come this one isn't improving as fast as the other two did?'
"That was getting to me a small bit. Even the smallest things like putting on your socks or climbing the stairs – those were things I was able to do reasonably early on the first two times but it was slow and monotonous this time. . .

“On the night it happened, I remember being stretchered off and I knew in the back of my head that it was serious. It took a few days to sink in and all you’re thinking is about what a long, hard road ahead of you there is. And of course, there’s a bit of, ‘Why me? Why me?’”

As with the last time, Counihan told him he was welcome to stay involved with the squad throughout his recovery. He stuck in with them, as much to break up the monotony of the slog as anything.

Post-mortem
He did waterboy a few times, left them at it a few others. He watched the Munster final in a bar in Croatia and when it was over he wandered out into the sun and got on with his holiday.

It was only after Dublin knocked them out in the All Ireland quarter-final that he realised how much he'd been getting from being in a gang.

“It was actually fine when the lads were still involved in the championship. . . But then they lost to Dublin on the Sunday and I went down to the Páirc on Tuesday night and it was a very quiet place. Jesus, I found that very hard. No noise, no one around. The last couple of months have been the toughest.”

For all the help, for all the encouragement, recovery is a solo pursuit. Nobody can rebuild his knee only him. But he wasn’t one for giving up the fight.

“I don’t think I ever thought it was the end or anything. I feel I’m young and I have something to offer. And in fairness, I got great support, people all over the country ringing me and texting me . . .

“Nobody at any stage said, ‘You’d want to think about giving it up.’ A few fellas asked me if I was coming back and I suppose if they’re asking, that maybe implies that they thought I wouldn’t be. But that would just make me try to show that it can be done.”

He’s shown it before. When he came back in 2009, he was chosen for the Hero of the Future Award as Cork won an U-21 All-Ireland. Later that year he scored the only goal of the All-Ireland senior final against Kerry. When he came back in 2012, he was Cork’s leading scorer in the championship and an automatic All Star.

"The one thing I found when I came back the last time was that it took a good while to get it out of my system. Definitely early on, when I was going out to a ball I was only going at around 80 or 90 per cent. Because you're just thinking, 'F***, if I twist or turn too fast here I'm in the lap of the gods a bit'. You're constantly worrying about whether you've done enough rehab . . .

Trust it
"It takes two or three games. You're nearly hoping that someone falls on it or gives you a good bang so you can get up and shake it off and start to really trust it again. I presume it will be the same this time when I do eventually get back playing.

“I’m back running. The last few weeks, I’ve been doing a small bit of twisting and turning and reaction stuff. No kicking ball yet. I nearly forget how to. We’ve not made any deadlines or anything like that. We’re taking it week to week. Maybe in the New Year, we might sit down and pencil in a date.”

Jog. Run. Twist. Turn. Kick. The building blocks of the game. Nobody has had to tunnel down deeper into the mines for them than Colm O’Neill.