THERE HAS BEEN no shortage of conversation around the demands on inter-county GAA players over the past few days and weeks.
Since Monday alone, several current and former players have voiced their opinions, sharing personal experiences along the way.
Waterford hurler Jamie Barron spoke about his decision to change careers and pursue primary school teaching to facilitate his on the field commitments.
Recently retired Clare hurler Brendan Bugler weighed in on the debate, hitting out at the amount of time spent on video analysis and ‘ridiculous’ drinking bans in his AIB blog, while Wexford’s Lee Chin today spoke about putting his working career on hold to concentrate on his inter-county career.
Galway footballer Damien Comer is currently doing a Masters in Education in National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). He admits that his GAA career had a small influence on his choice.
“I had a few options,” he explains. “I was on the verge of doing physiotherapy, the guards or teaching.
“I probably did pick teaching because you have the summers off, nine to four job, it is very suitable to football. You have to look past football as well, you can’t base it completely off football.
“I was talking to a few people and when you’re doing football it’s very hard to do physio because you could be in practice during the day and then with teams in the evening, so you can’t reach your full potential.
“It was an extra two years in Dublin and wouldn’t have been completely suitable. Probably football leaned me towards teaching and that’s where I’m at. I’m happy out doing it at the moment, I’m really enjoying it.”
Comer also spoke about how he used to work with his father, but found it difficult to balance the manual work and construction with his inter-county commitments.
“Just going training in the evening, you’d be wrecked tired. You’re climbing up ladders or you might be on the kango for the day.
“It’s not sustainable nowadays because training is a full-time job. If you go from that sort of atmosphere into training, compared to someone sitting at an office desk all day, they’re at an advantage already because they haven’t used energy throughout the day.
Kildare football manager Cian O’Neill was asked if it was worrying that players are making career decisions based on their football and hurling careers, to which he responded:
“Right, listen, I’m an educationist by trade. I work in the third level sector and always have done. I’m not sure how prevalent that is, to be perfectly honest.
“If someone said, ‘I’d like to embark on a career in teaching because I have the summer off,’ I would say, ‘What a brilliant profession to be in, teaching.’ Whether you are a footballer or a tennis player or you just like to read. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad career choice if you’re an educator.
“I think there’s always been a high prevalence of teachers in sport. Maybe some of it has to do with the ten years playing inter-county and they have the summer off, maybe it’s got something to do with the 40 years after that where they still have the summer off and they’re not footballers.”
He added: “I think it would be worrying if they embarked on a career path that was just for short-term gain and not part of a medium to long-term plan for themselves because ultimately you need that work-life balance and that satisfaction with your job as well.
“I think the key thing is that whatever you do in life, you do it for the right reason. You never know what is around the corner. I’d hate to see a player change into a career that he’s not happy with and then, God forbid, he has a bad knee injury or he has back problems and then all of a sudden football is gone or hurling is gone and so is his job satisfaction.
“I think that you need to be considered before you make those decisions.”
He also shared how he feels that flexible jobs help with the demands involved in the game.
“It’s quite demanding being an elite athlete and I say an elite athlete, not just an inter-county footballer. I have friends who aren’t even at national standard but who are triathletes who train 12 times a week. That’s more than twice as many times as my athletes train.
“In our game, the big thing is it’s a team game. You have set training times, you don’t have the flexibility of maybe individual sports. Obviously, you have the demands of travelling to matches, that type of thing.
“It is demanding and I think having a job or a boss even within a job who definitely is supportive of what you do definitely helps.”
Kerry selector Mikey Sheehy meanwhile noted that he doesn’t think time demands are too much on players.
“If a player doesn’t like it he can walk away from it. I saw a lot of articles there recently… I don’t think so. Nowadays it’s a fact of life, people like to stay fit. If they weren’t playing football they’d be still going to their gym and looking for their six-packs. I don’t (buy) into that at all.
“I’m only speaking now from a Kerry point of view. I think the players are enjoying it, they are well looked after and if they don’t like it they can walk away. Nobody is holding a gun to their head to get them to play. I think it’s overstated a little bit.”
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