Conor McDonald made his first Championship start for Wexford in 2014, in the Leinster championship against Antrim.
Just a teenager at the time, the Gorey sharpshooter showed his class that day by scoring 2-2 from play.
If nothing else, a debut like that burdened McDonald with the weight of expectation thereafter but he was unfazed, going on to play a key role in Wexford's march to that year's All-Ireland quarter finals.
McDonald scored a further pivotal goal against Clare in that brilliant debut season and from there, he became a permanent fixture on the Wexford team.
From then to now, sure as the sky is blue, he's been their ball-winning dynamo on the edge of the square.
Until suddenly, he wasn't.
The season just gone was a strange one for Wexford, ending on the high note of a relegation-saving win over bitter rivals Kilkenny. A relegation saving win - nothing captures the strangeness of it all like quite that statement.
But perhaps strangest of all was seeing Wexford start a championship game without McDonald on the team. They did against Dublin this year and, speaking on The GAA Hour Show on Monday, McDonald explained how he took the news.
11 июн 2023
