Shauna Ennis insists Meath LGFA teammate ‘should be playing major role' in All-Ireland final after season-ending injury
On the one hand, the two-time TG4 All-Ireland-winning captain was delighted to return after her own setback.
She underwent ACL
But she was distraught that old ally and 2021 All-Star Máire O'Shaughnessy was not with her.
The ultra-experienced pair made a private pact at the start of the year to play on for another season but O'Shaughnessy, 31, suffered her ACL injury in a league game against
Ahead of the counties meeting again this Sunday in the All-Ireland decider, fit-again Ennis, 30, said: 'I decided to come back in this year with Máire at the start of the year. Then a month into it she ended up doing her ACL.
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'The two of us have been very good friends for a very long time and we kind of both came back to our first sessions together, I think, around February 1.
'We just said, 'OK, we're going to have another crack'. And then a month later she's gone with the ACL. For her, I was hugely disappointed. She would be playing a massive part if it hadn't happened.'
For their 2021 final win, when Meath stunned five-in-a-row-chasing Dublin, O'Shaughnessy was a key player — but four years on, she is not the only high-profile
Royal
who will not be involved in Sunday's rematch.
Retirements and departures have hit Meath hard and Ennis said: 'There's Niamh O'Sullivan, Emma Troy, Orlagh Lally, Orla Byrne, Orlaith Duff, Kelsey Nesbitt, Máire, there's so many. I could nearly name a whole 15 that we've lost over the last while, Bridgetta Lynch. . . .
Most read in GAA Football
'To be fair, to be back again in a final having lost all of those players is an impressive feat. I suppose we do still have that core group of players that have been there the whole time. It's a different team to 2021 but we still have those core players too.'
Ennis is enjoying her return, coming on in each of her side's last four SFC games.
Kerry GAA star leads All-Ireland homecoming celebrations from HIS pub in front of huge street parade
Despite being best known as a defender she scored in three of them and hit Armagh for a goal in her first match back.
The Na Fianna icon smiled: 'It was just a really
nice
feeling to know that I can still play at this level.'
1
Shauna Ennis, left, and Aoibhín Cleary of Meath after their side's victory in the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Senior Championship quarter-final
Credit: Stephen Marken/Sportsfile
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