DUBLIN defender Sean McMahon has opened up about his concussion nightmare last month.
The Raheny clubman suffered the traumatic injury in their SFC loss to Castleknock.
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The defeat ended their campaign, but McMahon could not even remember the match when he was hospitalised that evening.
He has returned running in recent weeks in line with return to play protocols, and is glad the terrifying ordeal is over.
He said: “I’d never had one before so it was certainly a shock to the system. I didn’t know…I don’t remember much but what I do remember is the ref coming over and kind of saying, ‘If it’s a head injury he needs to go off’.
“And naturally being a player, I was like, ‘No, no, I’m staying on type of thing’. God, it was crazy. I didn’t know where I was.
“I didn’t stick around. My Mam came down to the bench and saw me there and had never seen me like this. When I asked her, I was like, ‘What am I doing tomorrow?’
“She was like, ‘You’re going away’. I was like, ‘Where am I going?’ I said that to her. I was supposed to be going away.
“She got the fright of her life, she was like, ‘Right, you’re going to hospital’. So I was in there, in A&E, and I remember getting told we lost and I was like, ‘What did we lose?’
“I remember my girlfriend telling me later that evening, she was like, ‘they lost’, but it didn’t register with me because I’d forgotten there was a game even going on that I’d left. It was just crazy. But thankfully it’s all fine now.”
McMahon is looking onwards and upwards for 2025, as Dublin look to bounce back from their shock All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Galway.
The 27-year-old defender had to bide his time with the Sky Blues. He made his senior debut in the 2018 O‘Byrne Cup under Jim Gavin, before his championship bow finally came in 2021 against Wexford.
McMahon started every Dublin league and championship this summer bar their wins over Louth and Cavan – and hopes to build on that even further next season.
He said: “You kind of just want to put the best foot forward, and I think I got a few lucky breaks in terms of maybe lads that got injured this year and I capitalised on that.
“And when you get a chance to impress you kind of put the best foot forward, and hopefully I’ve made some headway. I think I did this year.
“I think now it’s a clean slate again though next year. There is no complacency there in terms of expecting to start, I am a long way from being one of those, so it’s definitely a clean slate next year and starting from scratch and impressing again.”
But blue flu swept the camp ahead of their championship exit to the Tribes on June 29.
DUBLIN DOWNFALL
McMahon dodged the bug that gripped the panel before that 0-17 to 0-16 loss as their last team meeting was held over zoom, but felt it was no excuse for their downfall as Armagh went on to lift Sam Maguire.
He said: “Listen, there was a bug and it was reminiscent of Covid times in terms of, we came togged and we didn’t use the dressing-rooms.
“Our meeting was conducted over zoom that night type of thing, so it threw you out of your normal rhythm but in no way, shape or form was it a factor in why we performed so poorly in that game, particularly in the second-half.
“We were just beaten by a better team on the day and the wheels fell off the wagon. We just weren’t consistent in our performance.
“The first-half was kind of standard enough, going alright, and then in the second-half it was just kind of a systems malfunction. I don’t think a bug can do that to you unfortunately.
“We just have to dissect that second-half and figure out what went wrong.I haven’t even watched the Galway game back to be honest.
“That’s going to be a tough watch when it needs to be done. But there’s no coming together as a group as of yet.”
