Fallon ready to embrace the next chapter

For many, scoring a goal and helping your county win an All Ireland title in Croke Park is the perfect send off. A lifetime of dreams, hopes and ambitions fulfilled in front of your supporters who have travelled the length and breadth of the country following their team. For a Roscommon hurler, defying the odds by beating Mayo to win the Nickey Rackard Cup makes it even sweeter.

For Robbie Fallon however, it is bittersweet. That is because retirement didn’t come on his terms. Two weeks after Roscommon’s triumph in Croke Park, he was told by a doctor that he faced a difficult decision. Continue playing through the severe pain he was enduring but leave himself requiring a double hip replacement and endure the lengthy rehab that followed or retire from playing for club and county immediately.

He reluctantly chose the latter. Fallon states that it was a difficult choice but after playing through a considerable pain barrier for years, he prioritised his long-term health.

“He (the doctor) basically told me after the surgery that it wasn't a success because the damage in my hip was actually too extensive to repair. So, he could only do whatever he could do with barely any cartilage left in my hip. And he said if I go back playing, I'll be getting a full hip replacement in less than five years. And from my own personal health and everything, I said I would better pull the plug and try a different avenue.

“I have been in agony for a while, even when I went back to the county there two seasons ago. When I got the surgery the plan was I'm going to get this, it's going to help me out an awful lot and I will keep playing for another couple of years with the county and with the club. 

"But I was devastated when I was told if I go back in, I'll be getting the hip replacement. So that was my days done I'm afraid.” 

The pandemic did little to aid Fallon’s inter county career. At the time he was working in Cloverhill Prison while with travel restrictions and trying to adjust to working in a new era, he was unable to give the commitment needed.

After helping Athleague reach the county final in 2023, Fallon was delighted that then Roscommon manager Kevin Sammon reached out to see would he be part of the panel for the upcoming year. The fact Fallon said ‘yes’ so quickly startled the incoming manager, who had expected the inter county forward to weigh up his options for a period of time, but it was clear that the now Athleague manager was keen to reignite his inter county ambitions.

Two years later he was rewarded with his first Nickey Rackard medal after he was in America when Roscommon last climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand in 2015. The 31 year old was willing to play any role necessary when rejoining the panel, something he feels can be lacking in Roscommon hurling.

“I think it's just lads thinking they have to be playing. Some lads don't see that this is my first year on the panel, but I'll play this year, I'll see how I get on, I might get a few games. If they don't get as much game time as they like they might go again whereas you look at other bigger counties and it might take lads a couple years to break onto the starting team.

“But they stuck with it and they have the experience, the two, three, four years of experience of coming on for five minutes, coming on for 10 minutes, playing league games. That just needs to be brought into Roscommon’s mentality. We need to keep driving and pushing on each other and bettering each other,” he noted.

For Fallon, the show must go on. When chatting to the former inter county forward it is clear that bestowing pity upon him would be the ultimate insult. From dealing with a nasty illness before the Nickey Rackard Cup final that left him feeling “sick as a dog” to adjusting to retirement from representing club and county, Fallon isn’t one for feeling sorry for himself.

Instead, he has taken the reigns with Athleague as he hopes to find enjoyment in a new way.

“I'm focused on being the manager and being the main man there to help out with things and I'm feeling good this year. I'm flying fit in the gym and everything. It's just hard to get my head around. I'm 31 years of age now and I can't even go out onto the pitch with the lads and try and win a county final with them. I have to do it from the sideline now. It is hard but it's just one of the things life throws at you and you just have to take it,” he concluded.