All-Star Tyrone forward Cathal McShane has admitted his recovery from a serious and rare ankle injury has been slow but remains confident he'll be fit for the Championship.
Powerful McShane suffered the injury against Galway in the Allianz League in February - just weeks after knocking back an Aussie Rules contract with Adelaide Crows - and subsequently underwent surgery.
The 24-year-old described it as a rare dislocation of his ankle that 'you have a 1% chance of doing' and conceded progress 'has been slow' with access to physios and medics limited during the lockdown.
But he told Benetti Menswear ambassador Tomas O Se in a lengthy discussion that is available on their YouTube channel that he's optimistic about resuming inter-county activity in mid-October.
"The injury is coming on," said McShane. "If I'm being honest it has been slow. Obviously with the football being cancelled, the way I look at it is there's pros and cons to it.
"The pros are you're not missing any matches and it gives you time to do the rehab and get back to where you want to be. The downside is that maybe you're not getting access to physios and stuff like that as you would normally three nights a week.
"There's been good days and bad days but the main thing is that you just keep at it and you trust in the process basically."
With GAA chiefs pencilling in October 17 as a return to play date for inter-county action, McShane is upbeat about being available to manager Mickey Harte.
"Definitely, you have to hope for that," he said. "Obviously it's a good bit away. The fact that the football was cancelled was a big factor in terms of me being lucky, I have a few months now to get myself back again.
"I believe with the restrictions being lifted slightly that might allow me to see the physio more often in the coming weeks. I'm not 100% sure on that, I'll just play it by ear but you'd have to hope that, yeah, I'll be involved, once the football starts back up again."
McShane was joint top scorer in the 2019 Championship with 3-48 and bagged his first All-Star.
He was contacted by the Adelaide Crows shortly after receiving the award and agreed to a two-week trial that he felt went well.
"Once it was finished we sat down and had a meeting and they wanted me to stay, they were interested in me staying out there," said McShane, who hit 0-2 in the 2018 All-Ireland final.
"I said no, I had to get home to speak to my family and speak to people that are close to me, important people and I stuck by that, I felt I had to do that so that's what I did.
"They respected that as well, they said, 'Listen, that's 100%'. When I arrived back home, and it wasn't until I arrived back home, that I said, 'You know what, I'm in a good place back here'. It was just the simple things, your family, friends, teammates, the wee small things and obviously I got the career pathway with Keystone set up so that was a big opportunity for me too, to progress my career not just on the field but off it.
"There were loads of things I had to weigh up. When the final decision was there it was just a relief because it had been two to three months where it was very, very difficult.
"I'm just so glad it's all finalised. I'm so happy with the decision I made, I feel it's the right decision and I'm very, very content."
* Benetti Menswear brand ambassador Tomás Ó Sé is currently hosting a Live Q&A series on the Benetti social platforms. For further information you can find all interviews on the Benetti Menswear Youtube Channel or online at Benetti.ie
