Colin O'Riordan could have been lining out at Croke Park against Mayo on Sunday.
The most exciting underage talent to come out of Tipperary football in generations, instead, is one of a host of players unavailable this year to Liam Kearns as the Premier County undertook their surprising All-Ireland odyssey.
2011 All-Ireland minor winner O'Riordan last October signed terms with AFL giants, the Sydney Swans - where Kerry star Tadhg Kennelly became an Aussie Rules legend - but he will miss the final three matches of the season following an incident last Saturday, August 13th.
O'Riordan was playing for the Swans second team against NT Thunder in the Northern Territories when he took a hit from behind that punctured a lung and broke a bone in his back.
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The JK Brackens clubman told
Jackie Cahill of the42.ie how he initially tried to play on before his inability to catch his breath saw him withdrawn and taken for an X-Ray.
That was when his real struggles began, as the discovery of a punctured lung meant he was unable to fly home with the team.
“With the pneumothorax (collapsed lung), there’s a possibility of my lung going out with the change of air pressure once you go above 10,000 feet,” O'Riordan told Cahill. “We couldn’t take that chance so we had to go by road.”
Just the 4,200 kilometres from the remote Northern Territories back to Sydney, completed over four 12-hour days of driving - 6am to 6pm - with the team's welfare manager and a paramedic.
“It was fairly barren, nothing as far as the eye can see, just desert and barren land. It was as if a bomb hit it, nothing there at all, just a big road going through the middle of it.
“You think the road is ending and then there’s another on the horizon.”
O'Riordan arrived back in Sydney with hours to spare before tuning into Tipperary's defeat to Mayo on Sunday.
On the latest GAA Hour we look back at Mayo-Tipperary and chat to Andy Moran about his incredible, never-ending career. Listen below or subscribe here on iTunes.
