Dream return home that turned into a nightmare

By John Fallon

Former Irish U-20 Ciaran Gaffney has been forced to retire from rugby because of a back and neck injury which almost left him paralysed. He is devastated that his dream of being a professional rugby player is over at 23 years of age, but tempers his disappointment knowing that he is fortunate not to have a permanent serious disability.

The injury which ended his career came seven minutes into a game against, of all teams, the Connacht side he grew up supporting and whose academy he had come through.

That match for Zebre in the Sportsground in February was being viewed by Gaffney as a game where he could show what he was capable of and maybe take another step towards coming back to play for the side he cherished.

Instead, he ruptured a disc in his back, dislocated his neck, and spent three days and nights immobile in a brace in hospital before undergoing an operation which necessitated the surgeon cutting through the front of his neck to get access to the problem.

And throughout it all, the six-hour operation, the six days in hospital, the six weeks in a neck brace, rehabbing in Galway, Parma and Bordeaux, Gaffney clung to the dream that he would be able to go back playing rugby.

Rugby has been part and parcel of his life since his father John, who headed up the youths’ section at Galwegians RFC, dragged him along to the Saturday morning sessions in Crowley Park when he was two, throwing him into action with the mini-rugby players when he was four and from there all he wanted to be when he grew up was to be a professional rugby player.

“It was one of those things when I was growing up. If it was my birthday and, in front of the cake, somebody said make a wish that was always my wish, ‘I want to become a professional rugby player’. It was all I ever dreamed of.”

And the pathway soon opened up. He came up through the ranks in Galwegians, he was running the sideline for Connacht at the Sportsground as a ballboy by the time he was eight, secondary school at ‘The Bish’ in Galway and Cistercian College in Roscrea enhanced a growing reputation, Irish representation followed, and as he was going through the Connacht academy he chalked up 10 appearances for the Ireland U-20 side.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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