NOVEMBER 2021 WAS a very different one for Aishling Moloney.
Rather than unravelling one season and preparing for the next, the Tipperary star spent the full month in Dubai, visiting a friend.
Nursing a cruciate ligament knee injury, she was free to break away from the rigours and routine of inter-county football.
Amidst the horrific setback, opportunity beckoned.
The travel bug bit.
“It cost me a bomb, but it was worth it. That was when it kind of really hit me,” she reflects, as one standout moment springs to mind.
“I sound crazy, I know, but I stood on the sand dunes in Dubai,” Moloney continues with a laugh, her train of thought drifting, before remembering where she was in the story.
She had been apprehensive about heading off to the sand dunes, an hour away from Dubai, on her own, but ended up in a group with two French people and two more Brazilians. ‘This couldn’t get any more random than it is,’ she thought to herself in the jeep.
“I was standing on the sand dunes in Dubai,” the Premier ace picks up, again laughing, “the sun was going down and I was just like, ‘Oh my God… how is it only now that I’m seeing this?’”
***
Five months previous, Moloney was left lying on the Semple Stadium turf, struck down by the dreaded cruciate curse.
The two-time All-Ireland intermediate champion had torn her medial collateral ligament [MCL] in the same knee the previous November, but was back to her brilliant best by April.
It all came to a shuddering halt in the first half of a Division 1 league meeting with Dublin, though.
“I literally planted my leg and I could feel the motion,” Moloney recalls. “I just planted it and twisted, and it just felt like my knee popped out and went back in again. I knew straightaway.
“As they say when you do your ACL, you know when you know. It was nearly shock at first. When I was on the ground, the pain was severe, but afterwards, it got even worse again. I was very bad, I was nearly puking and getting sick and fainting with the pain. But it calmed down then, thankfully there were paramedics there who helped me out and calmed me down a bit.
“The ACL is a bit of a tough one. It can be quite a lonely road.”
A long and winding one, too.
Far from linear and straightforward.
“I’ve had my setbacks,” the 24-year-old Cahir star notes. “I just twisted my leg on a step three weeks after the operation. We thought I had done my meniscus, I went for an MRI and it ended up being a bruised bone, thank God, so that was a sigh of relief. But then it still wasn’t right.”
Rest, rehab and work with her local physio Ronan Crossan – who she has no shortage of praise for – along with tweaks to her programme provided by Santry Sports Clinic brought no improvement.
“I was in so much pain, and we just couldn’t really figure it out. The front of the knee was just 10/10, 9/10 pain, it was so severe. Anything that I did… if I was in bed and lifted up my leg, switching from the clutch to the accelerator, it just honestly felt like you got to hurley, hit the front of the knee and then tried to kneel down on it – that was the pain.”
With nothing to lose, and practically nothing gained since her surgery, Moloney attended her check-up in Santry.
This was four or five months in, and the DCU PE and Biology teaching graduate was no further on.
“I tried to do the testing to the best of my ability, obviously couldn’t do it because I literally had nothing under my belt going in. That really hit me, it gave me a big shock. Obviously I wasn’t expecting anything from the testing but it just really showed me how far I was behind.
I met Ray [Moran, her surgeon] straight afterwards, that’s procedure, I just said to him: ‘Look, it’s like this Ray, I’m in so much pain right now and football is so far down into the horizon, it actually doesn’t matter if I get back playing, just please get this pain out of the front of my knee on a daily basis.’
“That’s how bad it was. You go through a phase then of thinking is this in your head, am I just overthinking everything now, it’s the operation?”
A platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection was prescribed next, with 15 December D-day.
It’s a quick procedure resulting in a natural recovery process, as a patient’s own platelets are used to accelerate the healing of injured tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints.
“The minute I stood up off the bed that day, I was pain-free,” Moloney beams. “It was honestly just like… all I needed was nearly for someone to stick a needle into me just to release that pain that I had in the front of my knee.
“Me and Dad went to Blanchardstown for something to eat afterwards, you take in everything then. You know the elevator stairs, I could walk up them one foot in front of the other. Before, I’d have to drag my leg up, whereas this time I could walk normal. I turned around to Dad and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was like I was after getting a new leg. But I was thinking then, this is obviously too good to be true.”
A full month off all rehab followed, and she started from scratch once again under the guidance of Santry.
Building the knee up, slowly but surely.
At the time of our conversation, Moloney was pain-free, and feeling stronger and fitter with each and every gym session.
She was in a really positive headspace, had a steely mindset and was hell-bent on pushing on.
It definitely hasn’t been plain-sailing but I’ve accepted that from day one. I think anyone who does an ACL or any sort of an injury, I think just once you accept that, ‘This isn’t going to go right,’ mentally, then you’re actually going to be okay and things are going to come a lot easier.
“In fairness, I had a lot of help from loads of people. Anna Rose Kennedy, my team-mate, in particular was so good to me. She literally grabbed me by the hand and guided me through everything. She was so, so good to me.
“I had so many good people around me, it’s just great to know that I am in good hands. I think you need to kind of set yourself targets and keep yourself occupied outside that. I could really be negative about this now, but I can see it as an opportunity to work on things that I need to work on personally.
“I know that’s such a cliché thing to say, but if you stayed lulling on it, you probably would never heal. You just have to keep going, drive on.”
***
Understandably, Moloney has been hesitant to commit to an end goal or a return-to-play time-frame.
That said, she’s hopeful “we get back to see a bit of something by the end of the year”.
The day she received the news she had to get the PRP injection, she met Tipperary manager Peter Creedon.
“That was the first day I cried actually, since I did it,” she points out. “I just came home in the car and I was just very overwhelmed. I had been so positive up to then, I don’t know what happened me that day.
“I met my Mam and Dad when I came home crying, they just said to go in and talk to Peter about it. I went in and Peter was so understanding. He actually said to me about the group chat, did I want to leave it? I said, ‘Would you mind?’ I just seen girls sending in the gym pics and that. The minute I did, it was just a weight off my shoulders.”
She told Creedon that she just needed to concentrate on herself for now. Despite the “FOMO,” or fear of missing out, she’s doing just that as she works towards getting back in the mix.
Having also played — and loved — inter-county camogie in recent seasons, she’s focused solely on the big ball for now. ”It’s a pity because I know my body wouldn’t be able for the two,” Moloney adds at one point. “Orla O’Dwyer might be able to play five sports at the one time but not myself. I’m still going off that she should be in the Olympics, like. She’s so athletic, she’s one of a kind.
“I’d love to give it a crack if I was given the opportunity again to get in with them. I’d have to be only playing the one though, I wouldn’t be able to commit to the two. But hopefully down the line at some stage, I’d love to challenge myself with that and try get picked on the panel again.”
Both codes are down the list of priorities for now, though. Her own cruciate comeback is centre stage, along with her job with GAA Gear, travelling and enjoying life.
Those involved in inter-county Gaelic games often get caught up in it all.
Trapped in the bubble, forgetting how much more there is to life.
From the outside looking in once again, Moloney can see that now. And she’s determined to make the most of the new-found freedom while she can.
“It’s mad,” she nods. “When you’re playing, it honestly is like a full-time job. It genuinely is.
“Your life revolves around it. When you get up in the morning, it’s the first thing you think of. It’s the last thing you think of when you’re going to bed at night. And I actually would not change that. I wouldn’t be here today only for ladies football. It has brought me so much good things, positive stuff and opened up so many doors for me.
“But it’s when you sit back – it was probably a good thing in in the end, a wake-up call for me. I know a lot of people, when they retire, they don’t know what to do with themselves whereas I’ve actually gotten a feeling for that right now. It doesn’t dawn on me as much, looking ahead. I’m only 24 now so that’s a long way away yet.
“But I am very excited to get back in with Tipp. You’d miss the girls, the craic and the banter and it’s weird knowing I’m not part of it… of my own choice, I decided that myself.
“The girls have been so good, I’m excited now to get back out with them again as soon as I can.”
