Billy McCarthy has been back before. He has been back enough times to know it is all still written in pencil, liable to be rubbed away at any stage.
Since McCarthy first went down clutching his knee in a Mid-Tipp semi-final in July 2018, there has been a setback for every comeback, a hitch to greet more or less every step along the way. All he knows is that he is back for now, and that is enough.
This weekend he will play for Thurles Sarsfields in the county final. He played in the replay against Loughmore-Castleiney two years ago but this one feels like it’s a more secure thing somehow. When you have done your cruciate three times before your 24th birthday, you know not to take anything for granted.
“It does still get sore,” McCarthy says. “Definitely it does. It’s still a damaged knee. Any time I need off, whether I need to go into the gym when the lads are out running or whatever, Pádraic [Maher, Thurles manager] is very good in sending me off to do it.
“Recovering is a big focal point – ice baths, rest, getting into the leg pumps. You have to tailor everything in your training towards it. But I don’t mind any of that. As long as I can get back out on the field again.”
McCarthy is 26 now. He has four Tipperary county medals to his name, the first of them earned as a leggy midfielder in the 2014 side when he was just 17. By 2018, he had graduated to become ever-present in the Tipperary team in his first season at intercounty level. Of Mick Ryan’s outfield players, only Pádraic and Ronan Maher played more minutes than him that year.
In a bad summer for Tipp, he was the light piercing the gloom. They failed to get out of the Munster round-robin but McCarthy could not have done any more to make it happen. The summer’s highlight was a roof-lifting goal against Clare in Semple Stadium, all furious gallop and windmill limbs. He was exactly who he was supposed to be.
That was just his fourth championship game for Tipp. Nobody could have imagined he would still be waiting on his fifth. Six weeks later, a freak coming together against JK Brackens severed the ACL and PCL in his right knee. A year into his recovery, it still had not come right and a fresh scan found he had torn the ACL again. He got back for the 2020 championship, only for it to go for a third time, eight minutes into a game against Moycarkey-Borris.
“The first time it happened, it was always in my head that I’d get back. I knew how bad the injury was but there was never a doubt. But then when I had to go for another operation a year later, that takes its toll on you as time goes on. The surgeon was always great with me – he said I’d get back and I did get back the following year.
“But then when it goes the third time, it just destroys you. You’re wondering will I ever get back. Will I ever get back the same as I was? The mental battle the third time was the toughest.”
How could it be anything else? The road is long and dull. Most of all, the road is lonely. All the goodwill and support in the world does not hide the reality that nobody can do the work only you.
“When the first injury occurred, my life was turned upside down. All I knew was heading back from college for training twice a week and playing on the weekends. I went from doing that to being left alone,” McCarthy recalls.
“You don’t have any training at all for club or county. You’re going to the gym on your own. You’re doing everything on your own. Your routine is thrown up in the air.
“I know the GPA (Gaelic Players Association) offer good support but I think something might have to be looked at there. Because it is very tough on players. Professional athletes, when they get injured, go straight in with the physios and the medical staff and they look after you. But with amateurs, you’re kind of thrown to the side and it’s like, ‘Okay, sure come back when you’re ready.’
“It’s probably unfair but it’s just the way it is. I don’t see it changing very much. County set-ups have 30 other players to worry about. They can’t be focusing on spending all their time on somebody who is going to be a year, a year-and-a-half away from being back. Or, in my case, the guts of three years. You can see where they’re coming from. But it’s tough going.
“You have to be very headstrong and keep turning up every day no matter what. You have to stay mentally resilient. You have to stay turning up. It’s more consistency than anything else. If you’re putting in 100 per cent for half the week and then nothing for the rest of the week, it’s no good. You’re better putting in 50 per cent or 75 per cent every single day. That’s when you see the benefits.”
McCarthy has no problem saying it changed him. He thinks of the life he could have had, the life he wanted more than anything. And he knows, right to his core, that had the injuries not come along, he’d still be chasing that life with all he has.
“Hurling was everything. My life was centred around hurling. And then when it’s taken away from you, you probably see life differently. You see people heading away and you realise that hurling probably isn’t everything. I know that in my life, hurling isn’t the sole focus now. There are other scenarios that I’m focused on.
“But I also can probably safely say that if I didn’t get injured, hurling would be my life. I would still have it as my sole priority. If it kept going the way I was going and if I was in with Tipp and whatever else, I probably wouldn’t find room in my life for much else. But because of the injuries, my perspective has probably changed a good bit. You realise it’s not the be all and end all. But again, if I didn’t get injured, it probably still would be.
[ Billy McCarthy on the obsession to get back playing the game he lovesOpens in new window ]
“I’ve probably lost a small bit of pace and I’m probably a bit slower on the turn, just over-compensating. But look, I’ve torn a cruciate and multiple other ligaments. You’ll take being a bit slower on the turn just to be back out there. I still get the joy from the game. This year, I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Sunday: Tipperary SHC final: Kiladangan v Thurles Sarsfields, Semple Stadium, 4pm
