Conleith Gilligan says Eoin Bradley's injury in 2011 could have happened to anyone
STRICTLY speaking, Derry’s 2011 inter-county season ended in Croke Park on July 23 when Kildare cleaned them out and Enda Muldoon had a goal ruled out for a suspected square ball offence.
Emotionally, it came six days earlier, when Donegal’s venus fly-trap defence opened their jaws and swallowed the Derry attack whole in the Ulster final.
But with the benefit of six months grace, there is a growing realisation that their season went off the rails on a lonely Sunday in Ballinascreen, seven days before the Ulster final, when Eoin Bradley came to collect a routine pass in the last training game before the final. Disaster struck as he went to the turf. Derry’s cruciate ligament curse had claimed another victim to add to James Conway and Paddy Bradley.
Conleith Gilligan had been replaced just a few minutes earlier and had a perfect view of the moment from the substitute’s bench.
“The minute it happened, I just thought it was generally the sort of position I might have taken up. The immediate thought was that it could have been anybody, it was a random act.
"At the time, you knew it was serious. You always hope for the best, but I don’t think anybody there thought there would be anything positive that would come out of it.
“There was a palpable sense of, ‘Jesus, this isn’t good.’ We finished the session out, but I suppose… At that stage, Eoin was very important to the way that we were playing. Everybody sort of thought, ‘Jesus’, and yes, while it was an opportunity for somebody else, it was a blow that we just didn’t need.”
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