Meath legend reveals his 'terrifying' struggle with virus

Sean Boylan has revealed today how he was "terrified" when he contracted the Covid-19 virus.

The former Meath football manager, who is 77, spoke about how "totally out of the blue" he discovered he had the coronavirus.

"It is such a dangerous thing and I'm talking about somebody who went for a vaccination for pneumonia and a vaccination for the flu as well. Six days later I wasn't feeling well and it turned out I had Covid," he revealed on the 'Sunday Sport' programme on RTE Radio One.

"It was very stark. I ended up in hospital on the 31st March totally out of the blue never feeling healthier, fit as a fiddler but I lost 10 kilos in six days.

"The people in James Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown couldn't have been nicer to me but the terror, the fear, it was uncanny, it was unreal, I was never as afraid of anything in my life, I always very happy but this it took me weeks.

"Tina, my wife, said to be one day even the kids are saying you're not yourself, you're a bit snappy, you're a bit short, and I went out walking in the fields and I remember saying to myself if somebody came into me like that what I would you be saying Sean? 'Cop on, right'.

"You've got a ferocious fright and you've got Post Traumatic Stress. I took something for that, and within three-and-a-half hours later I start back, thanks bit to God Almighty.

"I made a great recovery but the care that I got was huge but I couldn't wait to get out. "

The Dunboyne herbalist said it was an extraordinary time in many way, traumatic too, but it brought all the members of his large family - he's the father of six - closer together.

"The older ones got to know the younger ones very well but Tina she's the common denominator, she keeps everything together, but sport was the lifeline."

Elaborating further on his battle with Covid-19, Boylan outlined how he had gone to have his bloods tested but his oxygen levels were deemed too low.

"It was frightening, you are taken there (to hospital) and the precautions that are taken there are huge and suddenly when you find yourself being brought from one place to another to another.

"It was only the next morning it was confirmed I had the Covid, that I had a pneumonia, but it just shows you how quickly you can be in the whole of your health."

He outlined shortly before that he was feeling fine. "I never was better. It just hit me like a bolt.

"What was it like in the hospital? You can imagine. The doctor rings you you have your phone, you don't know whose call it is, he says look I won't be able to see you today but I'll have somebody in and they are masked and gowned.

"One of the most brilliant things that happened me, there was a man from Nobber and a man from Goa in my ward. You can imagine the three of us with our masks and the girls were from India looking after us and they were lovely, they couldn't be nicer but the problem was I'm difficult enough (to be understood) without a mask and so are they."

He was, he admitted, badly shaken by the news. "It was just terrifying that's exactly the way it was but they could not have been more caring."

He outlined how within four days he got the all-clear and on the sixth day was discharged. "I was back six days later, heart, lungs perfect back in November and I'm still only a young man!"

Boylan is not unfamiliar with health scares as around 10 years he battled with prostate cancer and recovered from that.

Towards the end of last year it was announced that Boylan would be joining the backroom team of the Down u-20 footballers under manager Conor Laverty.

Talking on 'Sunday Sport', Boylan said that while he greatly admires how Dublin have gone about achieving six All-Ireland titles in a row he believes they can be beaten.

"Do I think that they are invincible? Of course they are not. Do I think there is somebody out there who can beat them? Eventually but they are going to have to work really hard at it. Lots of people have said to me 'Oh look at the money that is being put into them' it's got nothing to do with that it's an ethos."

Boylan said he has seen "green shoots" in Meath football over the last three or four years at under-age level but it's a question of having enough players of the required quality emerging at the one time.

He referred to this year's Leinster final and how in once incident Cillian O'Sullivan was charging through the Dublin defence.

"The players in front of him nearly froze, they never created the space and we never got that goal that might have set us off. It's amazing how something as simple as that can change everything. It was an uphill battle from there."

In response to a question from presenter John Murray, Boylan added with a laugh that he never takes his managerial cap off and if he was still managing Meath against Dublin he would try to close the space down.

"There's no way Andy McEntee (Meath manager) put the lads out (in the 2020 Leinster final Dublin won comfortably) to stand off but when things didn't work out at the start and Dublin ended up getting the goal you can freeze for a minute and if you lose your concentration like that you are nearly gone for the match. There is no way with a team that that won five All-Irelands you can afford to stand off them and that's what we ended up doing, no more than lots of other teams, and that's what we've got to change. If things apparently go wrong use that to get yourself going."