The Irish midfielder became the latest in a lengthy list to experience her sport’s troubling epidemic last February.
We were there that week in beautiful Florence, when the beastly injury capsized her in a training session ahead of an Italy friendly that most have now forgotten.
Nobody had even touched her; the merest twist prompting agonising pain, a nightmare beneath the scorching midday sun.
West Ham’s Irish international Jess Ziu, her fellow northsider, was amongst those who witnessed the trauma.
She shuddered with recognition; this was her first international camp since the same injury had shattered her World Cup dreams 17 months earlier.
The next day, she was an emotional crutch to the sorrowful soul struggling to move forward on crutches of aluminium.
Last week, the violent turn of the tide.
Birmingham City midfielder Finn, now five months on since her operation, composed a text that she never thought she would ever have to send.
For her best pal Ziu had been struck down – yet again – with the cursed ACL.
“Yes, it’s crazy,” says Finn, on duty at FAI HQ for the Sports Direct FAI Women’s Cup semi-final draw. “I just sent her a message.
“’You obviously have been through it, you know what’s ahead of you so you’ll know what to expect. But I’m here for you.’
“It’s terrible for her. She was only back around six months and she was flying, she was doing great. It’s heartbreaking for it to happen to her again. I really feel for her. The ACL, I know, it’s everywhere.”
If she is tempted to dip into fortune’s well, even though she knows there may be merely a trickle of fate flowing, she feels grateful not yet to have encountered any major obstacles during her recuperation.
Still, she will not cheat chance by pinpointing a return date. She does have in mind, however, a return target. A subtle difference but the margins are cigarette paper-thin.
“It’s five months since the operation and hopefully running now will be the next milestone,” says the 26-year-old, who has won 15 Irish caps.
“I’m hitting all the markers, it’s so particular given everything that the doctors are looking for numbers wise and stuff. Which is obviously good because you want to be ready to go back, be fit and ready to go.
“I’ve been up in Santry Clinic which has been great and Birmingham have been brilliant with me, liaising back and forth.
“Listen, I’m the kind of person that if somebody gives me a date, I’ll do absolutely everything to try and get that. And if I don’t, I’ll be very disheartened, really.
“I think it’s important that they show me the guidelines, and we need to hit them, all the small goals every week and every month.
“And so doing it that way instead of thinking about the 12th of whatever. It’s such a complex injury and week to week it often varies depending on how the knee reacts or if it doesn’t.
“At the start it’s difficult, because I’ve been team-based since I was around five, I’ve always been in that environment. It was difficult.
“But then knowing you are doing it for a reason, knowing you are doing it to get back playing in teams. They’re obviously out on the pitch doing their bit to succeed but for me it’s also a case of me trying to do my bit to get back on the pitch.
“If I’m back playing in the New Year, that would be aim, July is the Euros and we’re in a good position to target that.”
