Ex-Dubs boss tells of ‘illegal’ training methods used on new Dubs boss Brennan

He tried to break him!

But in the columns and comments written about the former player, his exploits on the pitch have been noted as another reason for his success off it.

An All-Star and two-time All-Ireland winner, Brennan was one of the toughest and hardest working defenders the Sky Blues ever had.

Speaking with Joe Brolly, former Dubs boss Pat Gilroy told of the intense training methods he used on his players after a poor 2009 season, in hope of 'breaking them' and seeing what they were made of.

However, one of the players he could not beat was Brennan.

Gilroy said: “We trained them every morning at 5.0am on the Alfie Byrne all-weather pitch. It was a gutting session. My aim was to break them. To strip them bare and see what they were really made of. Fellas were vomiting. Fellas were crying off with a sore back or a tight hamstring.

“Ger was part of a core group along with Denis Bastick, Michael Darragh [Macauley] and Rory O’Carroll that could not be sickened. When I say I dogged them Joe, I dogged them. It got to the stage where I was trying to break those four. I got locked into a battle with them. It was a Mexican stand-off. It was torture and very probably illegal. It definitely couldn’t be found in any sports science manual.