Colm Cooper has revealed how he hoped to go through his inter-county career without missing a championship match.

The Kerry captain is resigned to missing his first championship game (and championship) since his debut season of 2002 after undergoing surgery on the cruciate ligament injury he sustained while on duty for Dr. Crokes against Castlebar Mitchel's in February's All-Ireland club SFC semi-final.

"I suppose there was a bit of emotion because people had seen me play for 12 years and when that's happening you take it for granted," he told members of the media at an Adidas event in Dublin's Merrion Hotel yesterday.

"I was always very proud of that record that I played in every championship game for Kerry because at some stage in your career you could be injured, suspended, sick or you will miss matches. But that was a record where I was saying, 'wouldn't it be fantastic if I could keep it my whole career'. Maybe I was thinking too far ahead and it got the better of me.

"But look, initially it's hugely disappointing and it was difficult enough to leave it sink in and digest. But my outlook now is probably a lot more positive than it was a month or six weeks ago in terms of when I saw the knee when I came out of surgery. When you're struggling to get up to go to the toilet, you're saying, 'how am I ever going to get back up on it on a championship field?'

"But I've seen remarkable improvement in the last 10 days, two weeks, so that just tells me that it's going to get there and it's going to take time." Tweet

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