DUBLIN MANAGER ANTHONY Daly has revealed he is still at a loss as to the root cause of the cruciate epidemic that struck down a number of key players in their squad last season.
Defensive duo Tomas Brady and Stephen Hiney along with attacking talisman Conal Keaney were all marked absent for their All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tipperary last August but the trio have recovered to be in line to feature in next Saturday’s Leinster semi-final against Kilkenny.
“How could you compare them? One was below in Wexford Park on heavy ground, the other was on top of the ground in Tullamore, one was on the Blessington road. It’s weird, isn’t it? Even sitting down with the physios and asking them what they think, it’s varying opinions really. Some fellas mention boots. They say there’s all sorts of studies going on in the States and Australia and there’s no definite reason.
“We’ve seen it everywhere. Kilkenny have suffered with it as well. We’ve seen the Cork footballers, Dermot Earley and the Munster rugby team have had their fair share of injuries. And look at the Cork ladies team. They’ve had an epidemic of it. I’m not medically qualified and I even think the medically qualified people don’t know.”
Daly believes that GAA players are at a disadvantage to their professional counterparts in rugby with the lack of time available to them to recuperate between training sessions.
“It’s interesting. I was just talking to Ger Keane there one day who works in Ger Hartmann’s clinic in Limerick. We wouldn’t use him now as much as we do with the boys we have in Santry. But he was just saying, how are the boys coming on and I asked what did he think it was. He said look at the Munster rugby team and how much time they can spend recuperating.
“He sees that because they’re based in UL and they can just be more ready for that training. He reckons the Limerick hurlers train every bit as hard but the Munster lads go in and do yoga, pilates, resting, into the pool and massage. They recover much better than the GAA player who has to go into work.”
Daly insists that he remained hugely proud of the manner in which his players coped with those injury setbacks last summer to run Tipperary closely in that All-Ireland semi-final.
“You couldn’t but be proud of the boys that day. We asked them to empty the tank. The injuries you can do nothing about them. That’s the way it just panned out. You could have felt sorry for yourself and not turned up at all but we had a real cut.
“There was a ferocious sense of disappointment afterwards. That’s what you wanted really. We thought we could have got over the line but we were proud of the boys.”
