'All the kids want to be hurlers... that's a motivation for Cork football to get back to where it should be'

ANATOMY of a lost season.

On a bitingly cold evening down the Páirc back in January for the opening night of the national football league against Tipperary, two incidents drew gasps that warmed the Cork public.

At one stage of the first half a Tipp defender, seeing maybe 30 yards of space, clipped a footpass across his own goal but he hadn’t calculated for the speed of the nearest Cork player who tore up the ground and got a fist to the ball to knock just over the crossbar for a point — it was the purest moment of excitement on the night, that thrill of sheer speed. It took a second to register who it was but really it could only have been Sean Powter.

Then, in the second half, Powter kicked a ball by the sideline and when he went to take off, well, in his own words, he felt something click in his leg, something that didn’t feel right at all. The Cork fans audibly sagged.

It was obviously a bad one.

Aidan Kelleher, the team doctor, explains it as a catastrophic tendon tear right in the middle of Powter’s hamstring and hasn’t come across anything quite so severe previously in sport. Eanna Falvey mentioned a rugby player who’d retired with a similar injury.

The bare fact was most of the junction between muscle and tendon in his hamstring was torn. Of course, Powter being typically upbeat says he was lucky to have some left. Ask for a why on such an injury and there’s no definitive explanation.

There’s an acceptance that Powter might be more susceptible to such an injury due to his powerful legs and explosiveness. The player himself says that he was probably in the shape of his life at the time, just coming off the International Rules experience, and hadn’t felt any tiredness or potential signs of upcoming problem.

Just unlucky then?

“I think it’d be too casual to just say bad luck,” Aidan Kelleher explains. “But we would have been monitoring his games and training at that time of the year especially because he was involved with more than one team and there would have been a lot of communication and minding him and making sure he wasn’t overloaded.

“He played only 15 minutes of the McGrath Cup final and played 30 minutes for UCC the following day against Kerry. He played a league final for UCC the following week.

“The only thing different he did coming up to the Tipp game was a session on the 4G pitch but there’s no evidence to say that was a potential factor. He’d have been monitored on GPS during the Tipp game and his running and speed stats were right up there as normal.”

The road to rehab was long but Powter attacked it with energy and thoroughness, into physio Colin Lane (who he references as a constant help in this process) pretty much every day for months on end. Stages of repetitive exercises followed by scans followed by another stage of recovery and repeat. Back into running, back to changing direction and always aware that the only real test of healing an injury like this is sprinting on it.

Powter finally got back togged out for a run in a challenge game against Roscommon before the Munster final in early June. Felt a little twinge in the warm-up but between over-eagerness to play and not quite knowing if it was just a natural reaction to his first game back, he said nothing.

Played well for 20 minutes, went to kick a ball (just like v Tipp) and as he took off, got that same heartbreaking feeling something had gone wrong. The results of the scan showed a small bleed on the site of the previous injury and when it was put to Powter that the proper option here was to write the year off and do the recovery again, he simply broke down in tears.

“It was just the thought of all the work done being lost and having to do it all again you know. To come so close, to get back on the field and then lose it all. Eanna Falvey said it was the best chance of getting it right for my career.

“That was the toughest time and those were the toughest days really. Working in the gym, looking at the lads train outside, just really wanting to be out there. It was frustrating.”

It started again for scratch. Aidan Kelleher refers to the boring grind of stretches and simple bridges but tells of the player’s “incredible professionalism” in doing everything necessary and more – the problem basically was holding him back from doing too much, to the point that where a lot of players might have switched off, Powter became so focused on diet and doing the right thing he actually reduced his body fat in the time off.

He didn’t miss a game or a training session and was as frustrated at the performance against Tyrone as anyone else supporting Cork; his dad had to walk away during the game and let him alone. He’s plagued strength and conditioning coach Adam Doyle for ideas and work he could be doing throughout the time off – “I’d say I’ve driven him mad, when he sees my number coming up on the phone he must think, oh no not Powter again!”

He’s in the gym as we speak and at stage three of recovery is doing maybe an hour and a half of the basics each day with Colin Lane. He’s not running yet but there’s a hope he might be back to play some part with Douglas seniors or U21 if their year stretches out.

It hasn’t all been wasted time. Studies got a look-in. He’s helping out with Douglas minors.

Standing on the sidelines might have been frustrating but he picked up little bits on movement of other forwards, what foot people like to turn onto, those small kinds of details. Mostly he just wants to be back playing football.

“I was out around the county doing Cúl Camps and all the kids were like, ‘oh do you know Patrick Horgan or Mark Coleman?’ They all want to be hurlers.

“It’s a motivation for Cork football, to get it back to where it should be. I love playing football, I love playing for Cork.

“I just want to get back on the field and go about setting things right again.”

You can feel the hunger to make up for time lost. It can’t come soon enough for us all.