ACL rehab stories - Seamus Kennedy

By John Harrington

In the first of a series of interviews with top level Gaelic games players across the four codes who have sustained ACL ruptures, Tipperary hurler Seamus Kennedy spoke to GAA.ie about his own rehab journey to help promote the GAA Medical, Scientific and Welfare Committee’s ongoing research into the injury.

GAA, LGFA, and Camogie players and administrators are being asked to assist this research by completing a short survey.

The Player Survey can be completed HERE.

The Administrator Survey can be completed HERE.

Go HERE for more information on the MSW's research in to ACL injuries in Gaelic games.

***

GAA.ie: Seamus, when did you rupture your ACL and how did it happen?

Seamus Kennedy: It was against Limerick in the National League on Saturday evening the 9th of March 2024. I won't forget that date, unfortunately.

I had made a run for a ball and the pass was deflected as it was coming to me and I had to change direction and I just planted my right foot to change direction and that was it really. A lot of people would feel a pop but I didn't, I just fell to the ground in pain holding the front of my knee. Maybe just with the pain, I was unaware of the pop, I'm not even sure. It was just in savage pain for whatever it was, a minute and a half, two minutes, and then the pain kind of eased and I was able to walk off the pitch with the physio. But it was just savage pain for whatever that time was.

That was it really, there was nobody around me, it wasn't a tackle or an impact, it was just planting my right foot and falling in a heap on the ground.

GAA.ie: When were you told you had ruptured your ACL and what was your reaction?

SK: The game was on a Saturday night and I obviously knew I had damage done when you go down on your own. We're very lucky in Tipp to have Paddy O'Brien (team physio) and Dr. Brendan Murphy, I just knew by them when they were doing the testing that they weren't happy. They didn't say anything but I just knew by them they were a bit worried.

I got a scan Monday evening in Limerick and I was in Santry on Tuesday. I drove up Tuesday on my own and I wanted to be on my own. I knew I was going to have a good bit of damage done, I just wasn't sure how much.

So having the drive up on my own I was able to prepare myself a bit for maybe every kind of eventuality, but knowing I could be coming home with the worst case scenario. Probably those few days I found the toughest because you're just waiting to find out and you don't know how much damage is done. As a player playing inter-county you're so used to structure and knowing what's in front of you, your weeks are laid out for you, and I was just completely in the unknown and I found that hard.

That game against Limerick was on TV so loads of people saw it happen so I had an awful lot of people on to me, texting me, and I didn't really know what to say back to people which was hard.

I found out on Tuesday what the damage was and then you can kind of put a plan in place at least, but it wasn't a nice drive home either. I won't lie, it was harsh.

You're obviously in the midst of a league, getting ready for another championship, and all of a sudden your 2024 is done, for both county and club in my case.

You're 31 at the time and you're kind of saying, Jesus, that's a year gone now at this stage of my career. All those things are going through your head on the drive home. It was harsh and you're just trying to process it for a few days.

GAA.ie: As a player you're used to a busy schedule of training and playing week on week, so what was it like to be told you wouldn't be able to play again for another nine or 10 months?

SK: It's very strange. I had been playing for Tipp for many years where it's six to eight months of your year planned for you. You're given a weekly schedule and it has to be your life and you're basing everything else around that. It was strange to be home every evening all of a sudden and there wasn't much I could do. You're trying to kind of fill time, really, trying to find something else to do.

I was very lucky to have Paddy O'Brien, Dr. Brendan Murphy, and (Tipperary Athletic Performance Coach) Angelo Walsh. The way my ACL was done I was able to do some bike work and prehab. I had a very clean tear so I wasn't in pain.

I had no meniscus or cartilage damage, that's where a lot of the pain comes from. Mine was just a completely clean tear so I was able to do my bike sessions and some lower body strength work pre-op. That gave me something to focus on and go after. I was able to go to the gym three or four times a week and do a couple of bike sessions to get a sweat up. So, that helped in fairness.

I took it in blocks really. The injury happened on 9th March and the operation was the 25th of April. I waited until after Michael Quinlivan's wedding because I was a groomsman for that.

The weekend after I got injured happened to be Michael's Stag and I had obviously said that I couldn't go because Tipperary had a match. So I spoke to Michael on the way home from Santry and the following morning I booked his stag which helped for that weekend at least. Tipp were away to Antrim and it was nice to be in different bubble and away with your club friends having a bit of craic.

I was able to put a bit of structure in place, training wise, coming up to the operation. By the time April came around, I just wanted it done so I could get properly on the road back.

GAA.ie: What were the initial stages of the rehab like?

SK: It was difficult. For the first few weeks afterwards you're fairly sore. It's obviously a fairly invasive operation, it's a big enough job. The first few weeks is basically getting the swelling back down in your knee and quad. I had done a huge amount of quad work before the operation but not long after the operation your quad is practically non-existent. The muscle is just gone because I got the patella graft.

It's very much trying to straighten your knee and keep it elevated to basically get the swelling down and a small bit of flexion and movement in the back of the knee. Then it’s just little things like walking properly again. Getting up and down the stairs. Walking landing with your heel first so your foot moves and you're not swinging your leg a bit to try to walk.

After the first two weeks the crutches are gone and you're getting more comfortable walking again and you're starting to move again. You are sore definitely for the first week or 10 days.

GAA.ie: Did you struggle with the solitary nature of rehab when you're so used to being in a dressing-room environment?

SK: I didn't find it too bad, to be honest. Maybe because I was older in my career when it happened which I think helps. I spoke to lads who had done it like Brendan Maher, Craig Morgan, Bonner Maher, Barry Heffernan. They were all in touch straight away.

I actually met Bonner for a coffee not long after it happened and he was brilliant. I leaned on the lads for certain aspects but you have to go through it yourself because everyone is different.

That was one big thing I did focus on - not comparing my recovery to anyone else's. I'd see young lads in our club and they're asking how Nickie Quaid made it back in five or six months and I'm just saying to them don't be trying to do that. Nickie Quaid is a goalkeeper and 36 years of age and at the stage in his career where he's willing to take a risk.

I just found not comparing myself to anyone else's recovery was important for me. And I didn't go near stuff on Instagram or social media regarding ACL recovery. I just trusted Brendan and Paddy and Angelo as the Tipp network.

The training and the gym on your own is tough, and you just have to do it unfortunately. There is a lot of tedious stuff but as the weeks progress you're taking off bits.

Then I was doing the gym with the Commercials or St. Mary's lads and when I got back running I'd do my running as the lads were training. So at least I was in the dressing room putting on boots and things like that which helps.

GAA.ie: As a county player it must be great to have a good medical team around you, whereas it might be more challenging for club players?

SK: 100%. The lads were unbelievable for me. From two weeks after the operation, I met Paddy O'Brien every Thursday for the first 12 weeks or so of my rehab.

And my week was planned out for me by Paddy every week. He saw exactly how my progression was or maybe if I didn't progress that week. And then I got to a stage where I was both meeting Paddy and Angelo every week. So that was two sessions of my week, every week, done. Back again to that kind of structure that was laid out for me. So if I was doing three sessions outside of those two then I had five really good sessions in the week done on rehab.

That was really good for me because I knew I was working with the very best with Paddy and Angelo. Another side of it then in terms of everyone's injury journey being their own is listening to your body. That was a big thing for me and maybe that comes with maturity too.

There were days where I just felt like I didn't want to do anything and I listened to my body. Sometimes when you're used to high performance you're thinking, 'I have to do more, I have to get that extra one per-cent, I have to do something extra every day'. But you actually don't.

There were evenings I had to listen to my body and say, 'No, you're only going down to the gym for the sake of it, you won't get a proper session out of it, wait until tomorrow when you're fresher and in the right head-space to do it'.

I found that important for me as well.

GAA.ie: It must be mentally draining when everyone is asking you and even those close to you about the injury?

SK: Yeah, it's like you're nearly having the same conversation with everyone. When you're playing with Tipp you're kind of used to that in a way because if you walk around Thurles where I work then someone will always stop you on the street to ask you how Tipp are going.

You have the same conversations whether you're in Thurles or Clonmel so I was kind of used to that. As the year progressed and as I was improving I found the club campaign harder to be missing out on because obviously playing for Tipp is a dream that not everyone gets to achieve but we all play for our clubs. I know that the Tipp journey is going to come to an end for me at some stage unfortunately, but my club will always be there. I've always played for my club even when I wasn't playing for Tipp so I found not being able to play for St. Mary's and Commercials very hard to be honest. It really hit home to me how important our clubs are to us. That was one part of it that maybe surprised me in the whole thing. It shouldn't have, but it did at the time.

When Championship came around for Tipp it was a week after the operation so there was obviously a lot going on for me, but by the time the club Championship came around, it did really hit me. I was very aware I was missing a lot here.

We lost the county final in football and you're watching on and I was only a couple of months away from getting back and you're think, jeez, maybe if I was playing I could have helped, so there's that side of it too.

GAA.ie: What was your return to play like? Had you any fear when you got back into full-contact training?

SK: I got back in January 2025 and played 25 minutes of a challenge match with the Tipp seniors against the Tipp U20s in Moneygall. I played the second half of that game and it was brilliant. I have the date in my diary...in terms of my recovery it's actually probably worth mentioning that I kept a diary that detailed everything like when I got injured, when I had the operation, my first gym session back, my first day running back, my first training session.

It was just something that helped for me, to keep a record of the journey and tick off different milestones of the rehab. I found it nice to be able to write down things like your first full contact session back, first game back. It was just a bit of a personal thing.

Once you get back into full contact you are obviously a bit nervous but it's just about building your confidence back up. I had a lot of work done with Paddy and Angelo and if they weren't going to let me back into full contact or a match if they weren't happy.

There was a lot of trust there and reassurance that they were happy for you to go back into that environment. There is an element where you nearly need to take that first belt or get that first tackle and get landed on your hole and just get up and go again kind of a thing.

GAA.ie: You talk about really feeling the loss of playing with your club in particular when you were rehabbing your knee...is it possible you will regain the time lost at the back end of your career because being sidelined for as long as you were gave you an even keener appreciation of what it means to you? Are you even more determined now to extract the maximum you can from your career?

SK: Yeah, it's probably just that appreciation piece. It's like anything, when you're really stuck in something you can take it for granted. Getting back playing this year and having a great year with Tipp and Commercials as well, to be back in the thick of it all just felt really good. I definitely appreciated it that bit more.

You're right, and a few other people have said to me as well that I'll gain an extra year or two at the end of my career now. You're just trying to make the most of it now really. I probably am looking after myself even more than I previously would have. I'll be two years post-op in April and I still need to keep on top of prehab and rehab for my knee by doing little extra bits at the end of a gym session or a start of a gym session. That all has to be done and that's just built into part of your training now. It's just the norm and will be for as long as I'm still playing. I definitely really appreciate it that bit more now. I'm that bit older and more mature now, I turned 32 last June, so you're more aware of what's going on and what it means than you did when you were 22.

GAA.ie: Did you have a moment on the pitch after Tipperary's All-Ireland win where you could really savour it as being a little bit extra-sweet because you had to come through a tough experience to get back there and experience the ultimate high? Did the journey you plotted after the ACL injury make it that bit more special?

SK: Definitely. 100 per cent. Especially when you were watching on in 2024 and things were going so poorly for Tipp. That was very hard to watch the lads go through that. You're in a weird place because you're a part of it but you're not part of it. You're wondering, 'Will I see good days for Tipp again? I'm 32 now watching the lads, how will I come back from this injury?’ That's the way you're thinking.

So, to contribute in the All-Ireland Final and to come on in all the games and contribute, it was very special, it really was. Myself and Paddy (O’Brien) got a photo together in the dressing-room after which was nice because he put so much work into me and looked after me so well. Bits like that are nice. When you're done and you look back it'll be nice to look back on moments like that and moments like meeting your family after the All-Ireland because it was tough on them as well.

As much as people were asking me questions about the knee, your parents are being asked an awful lot as well. They love the GAA and go to every single match and are living in Clonmel so loads of people would have been asking them about the knee. It's tough on them too because they're used to going to matches and watching you play and you’re not anymore. So, it was great for everyone to be honest. No different to everyone on the panel, last year was just very special.

GAA.ie: It's interesting that the vast majority of ACL injuries happen in matches rather than training. It makes you wonder are we preparing our players for the demands of matches as well as we could be? Prevention is better than cure so I presume you'd be very supportive of the MSW's ongoing research into ACL injuries?

SK: 100 per cent. It's hard now when you see a guy go down now having gone through it yourself you nearly know straight away, 'yeah, that's a cruciate.' Can you ever replicate in training what's going to happen in a game with the intensity of it? I don’t know. Are we being trained too much?

I find in the GAA that we're great to lean into other sports like rugby and soccer, into their S&C and recovery programmes and different things. But should we have something more specific to GAA or even specific to hurling and football? I think we can sometimes be a bit too quick to look at the likes of Leinster, Munster, or Ireland rugby to see what they're doing. We can be great to go everywhere else, but could we have something specific for ourselves?

GAA.ie: Apart from not comparing your recovery to others and the benefit of keeping a diary, would you have any other tips for someone who might be starting out on an ACL rehab?

SK: I would really immerse yourself in the recovery, give it everything, and don't let bits slip. I found the nutrition piece was very important. I learned an awful lot about nutrition in the last year and a half. Different foods and supplements that help recovery. Sleep is important, your S&C is important. Particularly for someone younger, you should reach out and speak to people who have gone through it. It will be your own journey, but I really found it beneficial to talk to other lads.

I trained very hard during the week but I gave myself the weekend off at times to do stuff I would never have been able to do when I was playing matches. Myself and Orla would go for weekends away or go for a nice meal, things like that. I went to a lot of matches as a spectator for a change, which I actually loved. I went to the Ulster football final in Clones and a few other games I wouldn't normally have been able to go to and I just loved that. I was going to matches with my parents and it made me feel like a young lad again.

People say there's more to life than the GAA and there is, but I suppose I learned that it's a very big part of life for me and always will be. There is other stuff but the GAA will always be huge for me.

GAA.ie: How does the knee feel now? Have you had any issues at all with it?

SK: Touch wood, I've had no issues. Getting the strength back into the quad was slow and a bit frustrating at times and that was another lesson I learned. You're very driven to get back onto the pitch and once you do it's easy to be just focused on what you do on the pitch, but you need to keep on top of the quad. That was a little area where if I had my time back I would have had things balanced a bit better. My quad was just a bit off for a while.

I found last year as the year went on with Tipp I was getting stronger and better but you are chasing the year a bit. It was only when I got back in with my club afterwards and I was playing games every weekend between hurling and football that I got my confidence back from just playing games again. As the year went on with Commercials I felt very strong and I just feel like I'm in a much better place now going into the inter-county season with Tipp this year.

I'm just loving it and really appreciating it with Tipperary at the moment. There's a fantastic bunch at the minute with some great young lads coming through and it's giving us older lads the energy to go again which is great.