Much-decorated All-Star footballer Jenny Greenan was a conspicuous absentee from the inter-county scene in 2006. But thankfully the Aghabog ace isn't lost to the ladies game just yet. Words: Kevin Carney The news came like a bolt out of the blue for Jenny and she doesn't mind admitting that it knocked her for six. Over a long career playing ladies football at the top level, she had never been bowled over quite in the same way. The surgeon's delivery hit the jugular and the Aghabog and Monaghan star's heart missed a beat or three. Being told that she ought to forget about playing the beautiful game anymore hit Jenny like a ball driven at her solar plexus on the blindside from point-blank range. Monaghan's 2005 Player of the Year was stunned. Her right knee was the focal point of the Belfast-based surgeon's pin-point diagnosis. In layman's lanquage, Jenny hadn't two pieces of cartilege to rub together. Her knee was impoverished and only complete rest would provide it with any comfort. But even as the guillotine dangled over Jenny's neck and as the surgeon waited for Jenny to gather her thoughts, the hugely single-minded Greenan was already thinking; 'how do I tell this man that I ain't quitting.' "The operation I had in November 2005 was the second one I had on my knee so when he looked into it, he could see there was very little cartilege there. "Straight away he advised me to quit playing but I said I wouldn't be able to. "I knew it wasn't what he wanted to hear and I knew things wouldn't improve with the knee but I felt I'd keep playing at club level at least. "I was completely devastated, I have to admit, by the news and it took me a while to get my head around it before I told a few others the story." Bad news for the surgeon, bad news for Monaghan's senior team but good news for the good folk of Aghabog. The advent of 2006 saw the inspirational Greenan regain some of her confidence, a large degree of her fitness and all of her ambition. True to form, she was one of Aghabog's top performers as they galloped their way to the '06 county decder where they met raging hot favourites Donaghmoyne. Sadly for Greenan and Co. the script held good and it turned out to be a case of Aghabog being turfed out of the competition with very little ceremony. The match underdogs were poor and, for her part, the ever-modest Jenny reminds us that she was so poor she didn't even get on the scoresheet. Surely the dodgy knee had a lot to answer for? "No, the knee was fine. All of us were bad on the day; we just flopped in the final for some reason. "We seemed to have a mental block when it comes to trying to beat Donaghmoyne. "You have to give them credit though 'cause they're a great team and the fact that they went on afterwards to beat some great teams says a lot for the kind of quality they have and I suppose that's some consolation to us." As many a player in the same situation came to realise, it's almost easier for the injured party to come to terms with enforced retirement than to make ground in explaining to others just why bullets have to be bitten in such circumstances. Fans of ladies football around the county were shocked by Jenny's sudden exit from the inter-county stage and hoped for a re-think. The lady ain't for turning though. "I put some questions to the surgeon the next time I met him about playing club football and he again advised me to give it up but I think he knew how determined I was to stick with it. "It was a different story with the county. I had been considering finishing with Monaghan even before the operation. "I had been playing with the county for fifteen years and while I still had a bit of hunger for it, the knee operation was the final nail in the coffin as far as my inter-county career was concerned." But what a career! Over the course of a dozen years and more, Jenny Greenan gravitated to become a veritable household name in the fast growing world of ladies football. Reflecting on her time at the top, Jenny understandably fingers Monaghan's All-Ireland senior championship triumphs in 1996 and '97 as the highlights of her time with her native county wben Laois and Waterford were downed respectively. On the downside defeats to the Decies in the subsequent 1998 blue riband decider and to Mayo in 2001 represent the major lowlights for Jenny. That said, losing out in Croke Park in 1994 and '95 was no fun either, she quips. Interestingly Jenny finds it difficult to say which of the 1996/97 panels was the most talented. "There was an awful lot of hunger with the '96 squad and it was made up of a really driven group of players. "A few new players then came along the following year and maybe that '97 squad was overall the better footballing team but it's hard to know. "It's hard to say one group was better than the other," says the Parliamentary Assistant to Seymour Crawford TD. Meanwhile on the club front, two provincial championship medals also take pride on place in the roll of honour in the Greenan household. Jenny remembers the buzz of excitement that used to be generated in her local area during those heady, halcyon days. "Winning the two Ulsters was a massive achievement for us," she enthuses. "There was a really special atmosphere around Aghabog back then. "I remember two buses of supporters left the area when we played Shelmalier in Wexford in the All-Ireland semi-final in 1999. "The level of excitement and pride that was generated around then couldn't be matched at county level. " I think every club player would tell you that winning with your own club is something that can't be matched. "I'd say 1999 saw Aghabog at its strongest ever. It was a great time for the club." Sister of Paul Greenan (Aghabog) and Fergal (St. Brendan's London) and son of Paddy Greenan, former Aghabog stalwart, Jenny says there was always a bit of a buzz about the Greenan household thanks to the religion that was, and still is, Gaelic football, mens and ladies. Sunday meant Mass and Sunday meant football in chez Greenan for as long as Jenny remembers. Of course there were other, external influences on the sporting front when Jenny was young. Her local national school, Latnamard N.S was an excellent nursery for football-mad children like would-be All-Ireland medallist Jenny. The mini-sevens competition, in particular, was like manna from Heaven for Jenny and her peers. Representing her school and her county at Croke Park at half-time during All-Ireland semi-finals and finals left Jenny feeling like the cat that got the cream. "Those times were great experiences, in front of a full house at Croke Park, but at ten or eleven years of age I don't think you fully appreciate it." No major regrets then? "I don't know about major regrets but it is a pity that Monaghan didn't win the All-Ireland in 1998 which would have given us the three-in-row. "Losing that year to Waterford after a replay was a real sickner and as captain too, you can understand it didn't help the form!" A case of missing the boat the first day then? "I'm afraid so. We were winning well the first day but they came back at us and got the equaliser. "We had to do the same in the replay but we just didn't come back enough," Jenny laments. An admirer over the years of the likes of Siobhan Ryan (Waterford) and Marie Fitzgerald (Kerry) on the inter-county front, Jenny believes the dominance/success enjoyed by counties goes in cycles with Monaghan being invariably replaced at the peleton of ladies football by such burgeoning powers as Mayo, Waterford and Cork. She reckons that Monaghan will have to be patient in waiting their turn to reach the summit again. It's far from a case of being despondent though. "When you look at the kind of talent that's coming up through from under 16 and minor levels at present, the outlook is good," the former county star opines. When we were at the top at senior level, there were very good Monaghan minor teams too so I'd be optimistic that the seniors came come good again over the next few years." Asked to proffer an opinion on the current pecking order in ladies football in Ulster at least, Jenny feels that her own county has dropped from the top berth. "I think Armagh, because of how they did in the championship in the past year, would have to be the current number one. "They won the All-Ireland junior last year and went very close to winning the senior in '06 so they'd have to be tops at the moment. Monaghan would be next, then Tyrone, Donegal, Down, Cavan and then Fermanagh and Derry are a wee bit adrift of the rest," says the two-times interprovincial medallist. A debutant with Monaghan way back in '91, Jennifer admits it will take her another while before she gets over not being part of the inter-county scene and admits also that she would have liked to have "had a go" at making the Ireland team which took on Australia in this year's inaugural International Rules series in Breffni Park and Parnell Park. Predictably, the seven-times decorated All-Star insists she won't give up on the dodgy knee for another couple of years and hopefully it won't give up on her. Donaghmoyne et al, ye have been warned! Tweet

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