CONOR CLARKE is planning to erase two nightmare seasons from his memory and make a fresh start in 2016.
Clarke has candidly admitted he made mistakes in his approach to a difficult recovery from a cruciate knee injury suffered back in June 2014. And those bad decisions cost him the opportunity to be a part of Tyrone’s run to the All-Ireland semi-final this year.
The penny dropped too late for the Omagh man, who now realises he placed too much emphasis on rehabilitating the damaged knee and not enough on restoring his body to the levels of fitness the modern game demands. Clarke struggled to get himself into the sort of shape required over the past year and, as a consequence, played just a peripheral role in the Red Hands’ Championship run.
“A lot of it became personal and it was in my head that it had to be built back up, that the knee was weak. It wasn't really weak, it was stronger after the surgery,” he said.
“It was a matter of getting out of the wee bubble that I was in and forgetting about the knee. Do more on mobility, on agility and speed, try and get back to where I started on the seniors. Looking back now, it is easy to see, but when you are locked in that bubble, I suppose it was difficult.”
It was only when the 24-year-old finally accepted the knee was no longer the issue and was strong enough to take the strain that things started to change. The emphasis shifted towards fitness, sharpness and a readiness for competitive action and the future now looks more enticing.
“I sat down and realised that it wasn't all about weights. Because of what happened, I was on my own when I done my knee and I got caught up in the thinking that it was weak at the start, whereas it was a freak incident,” said Clarke.
“I got caught up in thinking that I needed to build it all back up and probably went too hard at it. I suppose I was in the gym so much, I was neglecting the pitch side of it. It was easy to see that if you looked in, I was in a bubble and couldn't see it. It took a while to sit down with a few men and we came to the conclusion of what had to be done and the changes that had to be made.”
A leaner, meaner Clarke took to the field at Crossmaglen for the O Fiaich Cup and he was one of just a handful of Tyrone players to complete every minute of both games over the past two weekends. He looked assured and confident at centre-back and those outings have helped him take important steps on the road back to where he wants to be.
“I had two full games week-on-week there. You always can improve, I will take training over the winter and just go for it, don’t hold back. I have nothing to hold me back now and I have a good run at it, through the McKenna Cup and into the league.”
And in the year ahead, he intends to make up for lost time: “It hurt a lot at the end of last year, coming back in, trying to get up to speed with the lads and the lads were so far ahead. I suppose in my head, I felt I should have been further on, but that wasn't the reality of it,'' he added.
“Looking back, we went a good distance last year, but we came back with nothing. We looked at that, we will be looking at it next year and hoping to go a bit further.”
