MICHAEL DARRAGH MACAULEY has revealed that the cruciate injury he suffered in 2017 that kept him out for most of the championship happened as a result from a fall off a skateboard while he was at a wedding.
The eight-time All-Ireland winner, who retired in January 2021, is the latest subject to appear on TG4′s Laochra Gael next Thursday.
Macauley suffered the knee injury in between the 2017 league and championship. It was thought at the time that he’d suffered the injury either in the Division 1 final defeat to Kerry or in training.
He opted not to undergo surgery and rehabbed the knee, returning in time to feature off the bench against Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final.
“I did it on a skateboard, is the true story” he revealed. “In the wee hours of the morning at a wedding.
“I got back for a few minutes in the All-Ireland semi-final but it was probably too late to get back into the team. It was a tough one to sit out for that final.”
Macauley opened up about his relationship with Jim Gavin, which was tested at times over the years.
The Ballyboden St Enda’s man was never afraid to confront Gavin on the occasions when he was dropped from the team. Being left off the starting side for the 2015 All-Ireland semi-final replay against Mayo, two years after winning Footballer of the Year, particularly stung.
“On that occasion I felt hard done by,” he said. “Whether I was or not is a completely different story. But I felt hard done by. I was never shy of telling Jim that I felt hard done by.
“I distinctly remember (being) in a hotel room with him and having choice words with him. That’s the way it is, I’m a competitor, I’m there to play the game. I felt that genuinely I was the best person to get us across the line from the start.
“That’s my belief and that’s what I was trying to get across,” he continued.
“Jim’s a tough communicator. He has his own style. Jim keeps to himself. He won’t give a whole lot away. I was probably looking him to give something away, to react or to bite on something.
“He was just like an understanding priest, just nodding and taking my verbal abuse at the time.”
Gavin wanted Macauley to adapt his game into a more defensive style, something the midfielder was reluctant to do.
“It cost me my place in 2018,” he explained. “Jim wanted me to be a defensive midfielder. I didn’t think I could do that role to a high standard, and that it didn’t suit me.”
He also spoke about losing his parents at a young age. His mother Rosaleen died when he was just 12 and his father Michael passed away in 2013.
“I was in fifth class, I was around 10 or 11 years old. Dad said mum had this thing going on in her lungs, the big C. Like everything, it’s just a sickness and you really don’t think anymore about it. There’s a few trips to hospital and she’s not really getting any better.
“I’ve distinctive memories of going down Foster Avenue and my dad was explaining that she wasn’t going to make it and we had to say goodbye to her. So it was tough.
“One of the sadder things is my memories regress, I can’t remember enough at times.”
Of his father’s passing from lung fibrosis shortly after the 2013 All-Ireland win, he recalled: “It’s a wasting away of the lungs. There’s no cure apart from a transplant.
“It was a steady downhill battle, that just gradually gets worse. Then he starts having to take oxygen for an hour or two, then eventually it’s 24 hours a day he’s strapped up to oxygen tanks. (I was) in and out of hospital, sleeping on the floors of the transplant unit in the Mater Hospital.
“It was a bit of a rollercoaster with that. There’s always this ray of hope with a transplant, but it just didn’t come.”
He added, “Christmas has never been great since to be honest. It’s such a time for family. Christmas Day is the one day where I just do feel sorry for myself that it’s just never been the same.
“But on a day to day I just ask myself the same question: what would your mam or dad want you to do right now? It’s so simple but it just gets me out of that hole.
“If my Da saw me moping around he’d give me a kick up the arse. My Ma would say, ‘What are you doing? Get on with yourself.’ That’s the only thing that got me through.”
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Although there is mention of green 6 dropping a shoulder in to gold 10 after Earls attempts to ground the ball there is no mention of gold 10 firstly grabbing him back by the neck as he attempts to ground it. Should this not have led to a penalty try and also anther yellow card?
More great analysis , exvellent reading
I thought this ref wad really solid in the first half. Our have double the yellows in the context of them giving away double the penalties was ridiculous. And that we got a first infringement yellow to Healy when they were allowed multiple infringements on the line, and us getting a deliberate knock on penalty after they had deliberately knocked on twice was crazy.
I think on a different day POM would have had two pens and a yellow card given against him – it goes to show how much people overreact (either way) to one performance – the devil is in the detail.
Great analysis.
Would be good to get a summary as well at the end.
@Andrew Hurley: summary, there are definitely times where either side could feel slightly hard done by, but overall the match was reffed quite well. And refereeing in general was much better this week and much more consistent than last week across all games.
I like the tone of this article . The assessment given by your Ref was very fair. However the variance between Southern Hemisphere ref on Yellow/Red cards differs significantly from our Northern refs. Especially when leniency is given to the home teams during current tours. The red card given to the French 15 was probably a bit harsh and did seriously effect the result while a similar tackle by an Aussie barely scraped a yellow card. Consistency is all we want please
I was confused by this:
“When the ball leaves the hooker’s hands the lineout is over.”
Law 18, sections 36 and 37 seemed to disagree:
36. The lineout ends when:
The ball or a player in possession of the ball:
leaves the lineout; or
enters the area between the touchline and the five-metre line; or
goes beyond the 15-metre line.
A ruck or maul forms and all of the feet of all of the players in the ruck or maul move beyond the mark of touch.
The ball becomes unplayable.
37. Other than by moving to the receiver position if that position is empty, no lineout player may leave the lineout until it has ended. Sanction: Penalty.
The answer, I think, is in 28.d:
Leave the lineout so as to be in a position to receive the ball, provided they remain within 10 metres of the mark of touch and they keep moving until the lineout is over.
Get a life son , it’s over and done with, move on
@Tom Gorey: jesus, don’t click the bloody article if you don’t find this interesting, thereare billions of things you won’t find interesting. I find this level dissection fascinating, so do many others.
@Conor Paddington: Dont feed the trolls Conor. Plenty of football articles to bait.