Sean Cavanagh was "disgusted" when he picked up the same shoulder injury twice.

Having battled back from a torn left pec major tendon in 2011, the former Footballer of the Year unwittingly defied astronomical odds when he sustained the same injury on this right shoulder last May. The bad luck left his surgeon bewildered:

"He couldn't believe it," the Tyrone midfielder says in The Irish Independent. "It was the exact same injury and I was told the first time that there was a one in two million chance that you suffer an injury like that again. The surgeon had only ever seen one of them and he is a shoulder specialist. I was just really unlucky.

"It is so unusual that he has actually written a case study about repairing pec majors on the basis of what I have done.

"He was telling me that he has given lectures about it to guys over in England and across the world, so at least they will be talking about me somewhere.

"I was in doubt for about three or four days. I was disgusted, obviously, after I did the second one and I said to my wife, 'I am not going back, I have packed it in.' I suppose I still had that doubt that the surgeon might say to me, 'you might not get back'.

"Four days after I got the operation, he told me in recovery that it was a better fix than the first one. I knew that the first one felt good so I probably knew back then if it was going to be the same fix or even better, that I would be back. I decided I was going to push myself and push myself really hard.

"I took a couple of heavy knocks but the shoulder still feels fine. I am feeling physically good and while the rest of the guys were taking the winter off and enjoying themselves, I was in the gym, running and what not. I had my break last summer and I am probably feeling the benefits of it now.

"The body feels good and feels strong so, please God, I will be able to drive on. It has really been the guts of a year and a half since I felt as sharp as I do right now." Tweet

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