A winter break.
Not a companion Aaron Kernan is too familiar with. It’s not an acquaintance he’s even nodded politely at for the best part of 15 years. And still, it’s not something he sees himself growing too comfortable with even now that his inter-county career has come to an end.
The Armagh man lasted all of a week until the boredom kicked in.
For the first time since he broke into the county senior squad a good decade ago, Kernan found himself facing a winter free of obligation in 2014. Crossmaglen’s Ulster quarter final defeat to Omagh at the start of November left the legendary number five looking at an empty calendar he had never known existed before but, within days, he had grown tired of the freedom.
The Crossmaglen afterburners generally don’t start pumping until that time of the year as the county recommences its slog but Kernan found himself suddenly staring into the Joe Brolly abyss and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.
So what did he do? He headed down the road and grabbed an oval ball with Dundalk Rugby Club.
It’s part of the reason why the new Setanta Sports GAA pundit disagrees with his RTÉ peer. Brolly’s comments that a culture of professionalism (without the pay) is ruining the game and the personal development of young GAA athletes is not something that Kernan buys into. In fact, he thinks that the new approach to the game is a positive thing.
“To a certain degree, I think that some of this stuff has been happening throughout,” the Armagh man told SportsJOE. “Training-wise, I think as an inter-county footballer, they have never been better looked after.
“I know at Armagh, we had doctors and physios at every training session, at every game. You have a proper strength and conditioning coach overseeing the team, you have a proper nutritionist. I think what’s happening at the moment is that it used to just be the top five or six teams that had all this but across the board, from Division Four to Division One, every team has this now but I feel that’s the way it should be. I think that’s only right that everyone sort of gets a level playing field regarding what level of preparation they have been given to try and perform or to try and maximise themselves. So, from a player welfare point of view, I don’t think we’ve ever been better looked after.
“I know, from my own point of view, even with Cross when we were on that good run, we had picked up the two All-Irelands and we were trying to go for three-in-a-row, the amount of training we would do at that stage was on a par or even more than what we would ever do at inter-county level. And I know that’s happening across the board.
“Inter-county football, it’s not near the same as what it was 10 or 20 years ago but I think, regarding preparation, that’s definitely for the betterment.”
So where exactly does the problem lie? How does one former inter-county player’s opinion differ so wildly from the other, particularly when one is still representing one of Ireland’s greatest ever club sides – and, you know, upholding a good career, a family life and a bout of rugby in the bargain, too.
“Where I see the issue is the calendar, not how players are actually looked after,” Kernan explained. “I think the calendar needs looked after. I’ve played in a club that was lucky enough to win an All-Ireland so I know how this goes. It is very, very tough to start a club season in April and not finish it until the next March and yet, in the meantime, your inter-county season starts in November to get ready for pre-season and then it goes through to September so your year is just constantly overlapping. Particularly for the like of the St. Vincent’s boys who are going to the final stages with both club and county, it’s extremely hard to do.
“The bigger picture that the GAA needs to look at is having everything in the one calendar year, over 11 months where every player can be guaranteed that they can turn around and say to their wives or their partners, ‘I’m off this month. We can go on holidays, we can take a break, I can switch off completely.’
“I think that’s the big way to move the GAA forward. I know it’s going to take huge steps because you might end up losing your pre-season competitions, it might interfere with provincial championships – meaning they have to go – it might end up with having to move All-Ireland final dates but I think, for the bigger picture, for the GAA to really progress, tough calls are going to need to be made on that front.”
And, where Brolly questioned the commitment level asked of GAA players nowadays, Kernan makes the point that it isn’t just the GAA. But that sport, right across the board, has just snowballed in Ireland.
“I personally know local people who just do triathlons and these people are out morning and night five or six times a week,” he said. “They’re in swimming pools first thing in the morning, they’re out either cycling or running in the evening. They’re paying for their own physios, their own nutritionists and, you know, the cost of equipment. And these are just local people who, like I say, I know personally. They’re doing it all because they’ve got a bug for triathlons now and they want to push the boundaries of getting better times and making times for different competitions maybe even outside Ireland.
“I just think, as a nation, we’ve become a hell of a lot more health conscious over the past 10 or 15 years. Everything has become more accessible and facilities have gotten better all across the country and it’s not just in the GAA.
“I think, 10-fold, everyone is improving. Look at what our boxers are doing now on a continual basis and the time and effort that they’re putting in. So I think just to say that this is only a GAA issue is incorrect. I think it’s a healthy thing that the whole country is now moving towards different sports. Maybe it used to be that if you didn’t play GAA then you didn’t do exercise, you weren’t involved in anything. Now you have so much that you can do that it can help you be involved in a healthier lifestyle.
“To lump it all on the GAA? I don’t think so.”
It’s those kind of opinions that make Setanta Sports’ new analyst a safe bet to steer clear from the Michael Owen school of punditry.
“I would hope that I might have a bit more of an interesting tone than what he comes across in,” Kernan laughed. “It will all be new to myself but my whole life has revolved more or less around the GAA. It’s something I’m extremely passionate about and I’d like to think that it won’t take too much to get me excited. Obviously I’m looking forward to the start of a new campaign and seeing what new players are going to be on show. That’s almost the most exciting part about the start of the National League is seeing what new players, what new teams are going to come out and start to make a name for themselves. Now I have the opportunity to go and see them live, other counties that I would never have seen when I was playing.
“I’ll give my point of view across with what I might see different in the game from maybe people who are sitting at home watching it, that’s something I’m really looking forward to getting involved in and obviously it’ll be a new experience for myself.”
An Ulster double header on January 31 kick-starts Setanta’s National League coverage as Derry face Donegal before Tyrone and Monaghan lock horns. Kernan’s beloved Orchard county won’t be too far from the action but can we trust the wing back to give an objective analysis on Kieran McGeeney’s men?
“I think once you’re in that role, you have to be professional about it,” he said. “You look at the likes of Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher there on Sky Sports at the moment, even when they’re commentating on boys that they’ve played against and clubs they’ve played their whole lives with, you couldn’t but compliment the boys on how they come across because they’re just doing their job.
“I don’t think there are any sensational quotes out of them, I just find them very, very interesting because they point out stuff to me, as someone who watches the odd game of soccer, stuff I would never realise. At the end of the day, that’s their job – to point out the small things that maybe us amateur supporters don’t realise are actually happening or the reasons why they’re happening.
“So that’s something I’m going to have to put a bit of time and a bit of effort into and, you know, you have to be really concentrated in the role of a pundit. I don’t imagine that I’ll be coming across as an overly controversial person but you never know. I’d like to think I’ll just call it as I see it and be as honest as possible and I think that’s all you can ask for of someone who is involved in that role.”
Whilst Kernan continues to polish off his wing play with Dundalk, he’ll find himself in a strange position for when the orange jersey of Armagh officially gets back into the real action. Not donning the crest or leading from the front, but outside the wire, probably in the studio. He’s looking forward to their progress though.
“I have no doubt that Armagh will be a better team this year than what they were last year. I think they’ll be a more confident team and even games that are a bit more dogged and take more grinding out, I think last year’s experience will really stand to them. I’d be fully confident league-wise that they’ll come out of Division Three and I’m more than sure that they’ll be targeting that as winners because it means they’ll get another game out at Croke Park and I think that will set them up well for a good charge at the Ulster championship where I don’t think they’ll be too far away from either.”
For now, his only concern is to become “less of a liability” on the rugby pitch. Sure what else would he be doing?
“It was more Cross ending earlier than what I would’ve hoped and what we would’ve planned for that I decided to take up the rugby. I was just sort of left sitting thinking, ‘what do I now?’ I’ve no county to look forward to going back to and obviously club leagues don’t start up until April and we’re only really starting back at the club at this stage. Regardless as to whether I was an inter-county footballer or not, I would always try to keep myself in reasonable condition so I just thought I might as well try a new challenge here. It’s something I always had a passion for and a want to do and thankfully it’s going well but I don’t think I’m going to be troubling any Irish internationals or anything like that at this stage.”
In saying that, we’re still a good nine months off the Rugby World Cup.
“You never know…”
And they say these guys need a break. It’s not in their nature. It’s not in an athlete’s blood. It’s not even in Aaron Kernan’s thinking. Onto the next one. It’s what we do.
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