The heart-sinking confirmation on Thursday that Jamie Finn had suffered an ACL in training will have resonated deeply within the Republic of Ireland squad.
When it comes to serious injuries, there's plenty of war stories to go around.
Jess Ziu [ACL] is only recently back in action after a year out; Megan Campbell [ankle, ACL] has endured dreadful injury luck in the last five years; while Leanne Kiernan [ankle] missed out on the World Cup because she couldn't quite prove her fitness was up to speed after being sidelined for most of the season.
And then there's Aoife Mannion. The Manchester United defender was a revelation when she came into the fold a year ago, impressing so much on her debut against China that her place in Vera Pauw's squad for the World Cup immediately looked nailed on.
An untimely medial ligament knee injury robbed her of that opportunity, a particularly cruel setback considering she's also twice ruptured her ACL.
Then, a few days into pre-season with United, she tore her quad.
It's taken six months but Mannion is finally back, lifted by her inclusion in Eileen Gleeson's latest squad and eyeing some well-earned on-field joy.
"Injuries and football are really, really difficult and most players unfortunately at some point in their career will experience that," Mannion said ahead of this evening's friendly against Italy in Florence.
"It's really difficult, but everyone is going through something like that in their career. Unfortunately for me, there's been a few in quite recent succession and this camp for me is about looking forward now and trying to appreciate things, take each day as it comes and get my head down and work.
"My main focus for these two games is putting down building blocks towards the qualifiers [which start in April]. I feel fit and available so don’t see this as a return-to-play camp. I’m fit and ready to go."
It had looked like Mannion would make it to the World Cup even after she tweaked her knee, but a four-week prognosis proved optimistic.
"I was in a knee brace and basically I was waiting for that knee brace to come off," she recalls.
"The specialist needed to have a level of assurance from feeling the knee that it was going to be OK. And so we thought at that point that it would be four weeks and it ended up being six, which doesn't sound like a lot of time, but you know, you in the run up to the World Cup, two weeks is a lot of time.
"So the day that I got the brace off was actually a couple days before the manager was going to be announcing her squad. She was going to be making a decision. I flew over and spoke to her, we had a really good and long conversation in a studio apartment in UCD and at the end of that the selection decision was made, that it wasn't going to be the direction she was going to go in, and so that was the short and long of it really."
Mannion travelled to Australia with her family as a fan, and - by her own admission - enjoyed the experience far more than she'd anticipated. Understandably, the 28-year-old longed to be on the grass, playing her part in historic games against the co-hosts, Canada and Nigeria.
Watching on from the stands only served to feed a deep hunger to make play at a major tournament. Mannion is on a mission - and the journey starts now.
"I was surprised she was letting me know I was involved."
"Eileen gave me a call last Wednesday," she said. "Usually in football when you see a name on the phone it's not good news. Usually the positive news is more run of the mill - an email or text.
"My heart went a bit low because I thought she’s obviously letting me know that maybe I’ve not been picked for selection. So I was surprised she was letting me know I was involved.
"It feels like a fresh start for several reasons. I’ve not been in a camp for 10 months so that in itself is fresh. Also there’s new faces, who weren’t in my camps, but were in previous to that. Established players like Niamh Fahey and Leanne Kiernan, who I was on the flight with. It was great getting to know them by chatting.
"There’s fresh management too. There’s lots of fresh starts."
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