Tipperary Ladies Footballers have been dealt a huge blow ahead of the 2022 season.
Last year’s captain Aishling Moloney will miss the new season as she continues to recover from long term injury.
The Cahir native suffered a torn ACL last June in a league game versus Dublin, but complications following surgery have meant that Aishling has only been able to complete two weeks of the nine month rehab programme so far.
The Tipperary dual star says that simple tasks such as going for a walk have proven difficult.
She told Tipp FM about a recent chat she had with her surgeon regarding a return to play:
“I said it’s as simple as this, get me walking on a day-to-day basis, I was like I actually don’t care right now if I get back to sport, but get me walking on a day-to-day basis without any pain.
“I said I actually can’t cope or deal with the pain as it is right now, like I couldn’t even go for a simple walk.
“For me, it was looking at your daily things, walking a mountain, climbing a mountain and then people are onto you about coming back to sport and I’m like I actually want to be able to go and down the stairs first and you’re thinking ahead to maybe kicking a ball around a field.
“So, I was like take sport out of it, just get me right.”
Aishling also spoke to new Tipperary Ladies Football manager Peter Creedon about her unavailability for the new season as she continues her recovery.
“I met with Peter last week and it actually kind of hit me coming home in the car, it was probably the first time I probably shed a tear since it all happened because it kind of became overwhelming to me.
“It was like, you think nine months and ah sure we’ll give it 12, but for me it’s going into next year I’m not going to be back, so I’m going to miss two years.
“I met with Peter and I just explained to him, look, it’s just going to have to cut it for this year and take me out of your picture because it’s just unrealistic to go back.”
