By John Harrington

Like every other inter-county player in the country, Lee Keegan is working hard to keep himself in shape so he’s ready to hit the ground running if or when there is a return to collective training and playing.

Not knowing whether that will even be possible this year has been mentally challenging, but Keegan sees a silver-lining to the current lockdown.

He’s had his fair share of injuries in recent years and is taking the opportunity now to do everything he can in terms of injury-prevention prehab work.

Other players are surely doing the same, and Keegan believes the current enforced break from collective training and playing might ultimately refresh players both physically and mentally and even extend some playing careers.

“I suppose we had a lot of guys that needed a bit of maintenance work, a lot of guys at the latter end of their career and stuff like that,” said Keegan.

“The break for some guys might be just to recharge their batteries and take stock of what's going on. I think it's no harm. Myself, my hips are grand, I had shoulder and ankle surgery after that as well.

“To be honest, little bits to clean up but they're things that happen during sport so I can get on with that…

“For myself, personally, it's given me time to work on my body, stretching, flexibility, that bit of maintenance that I maybe neglected over the last few years.

“Sometimes when you're like me you think you're a bit indestructible during Championship, that you don't need to do things with your body, but the older you get the more you need to look after yourself to be able to perform at the highest level.

“That's something myself maybe I neglected, I didn't do the little bits and pieces at home and now I've got my bit of down time I've definitely taken on that bit more during this time which we have had to reflect on what we're doing.

“Hopefully it might clear up a lot of our guys' injuries but then again you're talking about some guys in the latter stages of their career, will they want to go on for another year? I think so.

“I think maybe that hunger for guys, not being involved this year, it'll come back to them again next year, they'll feel they have more to give. Not just our squad but around the country, fellas who are maybe thinking about retirement.”

Keegan has been an outstanding performer for Mayo since making his Championship debut in 2011.

So much so, that Andy Moran recently hailed him as Mayo’s greatest ever footballer.

By Keegan’s own very high standards, though, he believes he hasn’t quite been at his best in the last couple of seasons due to injury.

“I suppose between little bits of injuries, they may have stopped me getting there (to where I wanted to be) I still feel I’m at a high enough level but not maybe at the high I was at in the 2017 final or things like that,” he says.

“The game has changed for me as well in the last couple of years between more detailed man-marking jobs, rather than that free role where I could attack all I wanted.

“I suppose I was probably seen as an attacking half back for so long, whereas now it’s more man-marking stuff. People might not see me doing anything but for me, that’s me doing my job as best as I can as well.

“I think of myself as an all-action player really, when I played in the half back line, I’d go up and maybe score a point whereas now it’s a more detailed role where you’re not going to be able to do what you did before.

“It’s something where you’re trying to learn, in training and so on. I don’t mean under-par by the level I was at, maybe it’s just I was a lot more involved in terms of the fluid moves, patterns of play and things like that.

“Now I’m trying to contain myself a little bit more, I mightn’t see as much action. So, by under-par, I mean I may not be seen doing things that I was doing a few years ago.

“Which of course I’d love to be doing, I want to be up doing the glamour stuff but sometimes, the glamour stuff is what the team needs and I’m happy to do that. It’s maybe a sign of my age!”

He might prefer to be raiding down the wing and kicking points on the run, but Keegan would give anything right now to be able to line out at full-back for Mayo and try to nullify one of the elite forwards in the game.

The challenge of testing yourself physically and mentally in a do or die individual battle is one of the things he’s missing most at the moment.

“Of course, definitely,” says Keegan. “That's what you train for. You train as hard as you can to be able to deal with some of the best guys out there.

“It's something I've loved over the last few years, I've been lucky enough that the gaffers I've had over the last few years have trusted me marking some of the best guys.

“Be it if I won my battle or lost my battle, to me it's still that trust that I'm able to compete against some of these guys. And yes, I'm going to have my bad days and my good days but that's part of sport. You live and learn by what you do.

“Would I change a lot of stuff, absolutely not. I love the whole competitiveness. As I said I was on a quiz with my best mates last Friday and I fell out with about three of them because they wouldn't give me the answer I wanted.

“So I'm throwing my competitive stuff on quiz nights as well so that's the kind of stuff I want to get back at.

“It's why we play at the high end of top sport. You want to be at that physical edge, that real hard kind of stuff where you're marking some of the best players out there and you want to pitch yourself against and see where you're at. That's what I would miss a lot, definitely.

Absence can make the heart grow fonder, but Keegan didn’t need the current lockdown to remind him just how much he loves being an inter-county footballer.

It might require huge dedication, but that’s something he’s always been happy to give to the cause.

“I love it yeah,” he says. “There’s been a lot of talk about how it’s gone to a professional stage, but I kind of love that.

“A lot of players do. You are training at something you love doing and at the end of the day no-one is actually forcing you to go out and maintain these levels of training and demands that are put on you. I don’t see them as demands.

“They are choices that we make because we love playing for or county or our club.

“So, it’s something that I love. I love having the thought of professional ethos, but also that it’s an amateur sport.

“We are treated as professionals but we are looked on as amateurs. I love that whole thing with GAA where we are doing something because we actually love doing it.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, it can be very physically demanding and mentally tough, and you have your good days and bad days, but I wouldn’t change that for the world in terms of what we are doing.

“For five or six nights training you are getting to pit yourself against some of the best boys in training, week-in week-out, when you look back that's the stuff I really miss.

“I’ve loved doing that for so long. It’s not something we are made to do. We love doing it.”

He and his Mayo team-mates are given individually tailored training programmes that they then carry out on their own, but apart from that they’ve had little contact with team-management in the last few weeks.

“Zero,” says Keegan. “I think James is very sensible in terms of there's not point talking football until we have a clearer picture of where we're going or what we're looking at.

“James, I think is excellent in terms of knowing this is a really important time to spend with our loved ones or the ones we're living with or can actually see within the radius.

“So, I mean, of course we keep in contact as mates and as a group a little bit, but it's not really football-related. It's more just touching base to see how guys are and what they're up to and how they're getting on with their lives. Maybe call in to guys who are doing exams online and see what their plan is for the summer and bits like that.

“In terms of actual set-up calls, we're not actually doing a lot, to be honest. We hold ourselves accountable in terms of the training we're doing. It's all prescribed for us and scheduled for us each day. But, in terms of actual group, we're not doing that much together at all.”

Keegan is a social animal, and one of the things he misses most right now is the camaraderie of the dressing-room.

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “I'm hyper on a quiet day. I'd love to be in a changing-room bouncing about. Just having the conversations, I suppose.

“As I say, these are the months you really look forward to. You're trying to get yourself in the best shape you can, looking forward to big championship games.

“There's obviously a bit of craic in the changing room and there's always that bit of competitiveness as well because you know the guys beside you are vying for the same position as you.

“There's always that kind of camaraderie but there's that competition as well. That's the stuff you really embrace and enjoy in these months we're looking at.

“We're still having a bit of craic I suppose through Zoom quizzes. There's a bit of competitiveness there as well. I think a few of us might have fallen out after the weekend because there's a few debatable cheaters in the quiz group.

“Obviously it's great to touch base from that point of view. Definitely from that physical aspect of being in the changing room and having those conversations and a bit of fun with the guys and spending guys with them throughout the whole year, that's the hardest challenge that's faced a lot of us so far.”

Lee Keegan was speaking at the Launch of Sports Physio Ireland's new Online Athletic Development Programme for GAA players and teams. The programme is an educational platform to teach players how to improve their speed, strength and conditioning and injury management techniques.