Susan Keane was done. Totally done. Done with the road. Done with the schlep and the slog.
Killimor in Galway was home but Waterford city was where she was living and had been for a decade.
The drive was two-and-a-half hours across six counties of threadneedle roads, the odd stretch aside. She took a conscious, grown-up decision that she wasn’t going to do it anymore.
And then the best thing ever happened. She lost her job.
“I actually got made redundant and I was so happy about it! You have no idea! I was working in a call centre for 3Mobile. They moved the call centre to Limerick because they amalgamated with O2 and I didn’t want to move to Limerick so I was delighted to get on the phone and go, ‘Hey Mam, good news!’
“I retired purely because of location. It was nothing to do with having done enough – that was never me. I always wanted to do more. I think I was just in a position living in Waterford where it got really stressful and I was finding it too hard to please everyone.
“You can’t be in two places at once. I tried for 10 years and it’s just not possible. Training with the team is so much more beneficial than doing something on my own and I found that hard, not being with them all the time. So I was giving it up. But then came the move home.”
That was last February. On the weekend just gone, they travelled to Clones to account for Loughgiel in the All-Ireland semi-final and Keane continued her fine non-retirement with a contribution of 1-2.
Yesterday in Croke Park, she took the Connacht award for provincial club player of the year. Not bad for someone who was done, totally done.
“Well because I thought I’d never play again, this means the world to me. I have been playing well but it’s more down to the people around me, the people who give me the ball to allow me to score. We’ve been really lucky as a group to have been together for so long. We’ve always been the senior players – it wasn’t that we had anyone to look up to. It was always us.”
Killimor have been on the road together most of their lives. Next month’s All-Ireland final will be their third in six years and assuming she stays injury-free, Keane will have played in all three.
They’ll come up against Cork champions Milford, who handed them a thorough rinsing when last they met in the 2013 final, the final score of 3-6 to 1-6 actually flattering the Galway side.
That defeat dropped dirt in the petrol for Killimor. They were unbeaten in Galway for three years at that point but fell at the semi-final stage on each of the following two years.
They had a change of management that didn’t work out and a run of injuries that left them short on numbers.
Only for the redundancy, Keane would have been another to fall off the side of the boat.
Still only 29, she has plenty to offer. She’s studying as a trainee yoga teacher, which ought to add time in and of itself.
Killimor reappointed Tommy Callagy, the manager who brought them to two All-Ireland finals as well and that has paid its dividend already in the first season.
“I think when he left, you only know what you had when it’s gone. Even the people he’s brought in would do anything for you. Tommy is so much more relaxed now. He used to be a bit stressed – and maybe we caused that. But he’s really calm now and it’s really all just about enjoyment.
“It’s much easier now communication-wise because he’s so positive. He realises what we have and he gives us faith because he is so much about enjoyment.
“I remember sitting in my room listening to the Mullagh versus Oulart All-Ireland last year and being really depressed because I knew we could have been there.
“I just felt like there was one more chance to do it. I met Tommy Callagy in, possibly a public house over Christmas, and he was all enthusiastic asking would I come back. And I said I probably would because I was pretty sure I’d be being made redundant come February so we both said there was definitely a chance for us.
“It was all about belief.”
