Nickie Quaid vows to come back stronger from cruciate ligament injury

LIMERICK goalkeeper Nickie Quaid has opened up on his ACL injury. Quaid ruptured his ACL while he was playing soccer with some of his clubmates during the off-season. 

"Three or four weeks ago, I was just playing soccer with a group of lads from home. It was a thing of nothing really, going for a ball whatever way I landed, I felt something go in my knee. Unfortunately then a couple of days later, I got the news that I was dreading that I'd ruptured my ACL. I suppose, I've road of rehab ahead of me now but look I'm trying to embrace it now and get on with it. And try put everything into the rehab and get back as strong as I can."

Nickie Quaid was speaking in conversation with Munster GAA after being named Munster hurler of the year. 

Quaid will now begin his rehab and the Limerick shotstopper will hope to make a return from the ACL injury towards the end of the 2025 season. The Effin clubman has vowed to come back stronger from his ACL injury.

"It's not ideal, facing into the new year. Obviously, I'm pushing on and getting a bit older. You don't want these serious injuries at this time of your career. It is disappointing to happen, I was down about it for a couple of days. There's no point in being too down about it. I can't do anything about it now. Loads of lads when they heard the news, they were onto me straight away and said there's six or seven lads in the squad that have gone through this. There's no shortage of support, that's a motivating factor for me to get back as strong as the lads did."

Nickie Quaid won his third All-Star this year. The Limerick goalkeeper had another stellar campaign between the sticks and the 35 year-old has brought the standards of goalkeeping to new levels in the last decade. 

Limerick had another impressive campaign in 2024 where the Shannonsiders became the first county in Munster to win six provincial titles in-a-row. Cork knocked Limerick out of the All-Ireland SHC at the semi-final stage. 

"We've always put a huge emphasis on that Munster championship. It's an incredible competition, we've been so blessed to be able to come out on top over the last number of years. Going into the Munster final, this year we wouldn't have spoken about six in-a-row. We try and treat it like any other game. They're incredible days to be involved in and when you win them it makes everything worthwhile."

Despite Quaid's ACL injury, John Kiely has named the south Limerick native on the 2025 Limerick squad. It is expected that the primary school teacher will remain involved in the background. 

Conor Hanley Clarke, Shane Dowling and Jason Gillane will all battle it out for the Limerick goalkeeper jersey this year.