Former Kildare star Dermot Earley says intercounty careers will be shortened

Considering it hurts him to walk, and kills him to run, there isn’t really one day when Dermot Earley misses football.

At 36 he couldn’t play any more even if he wanted to, and the way Kildare are going, and the entire Leinster championship, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

What Earley does sometimes wonder about is why he ended up this way. “At 36, you’d like to think you could still contribute to the club,” he says, “but it’s not worth the pain anymore.”

It was that pain – in his knee, and also his back – which ultimately forced Earley to retire, just before the start of the 2013 championship. After 16 seasons with Kildare, during which he won two Leinster titles, and two All Stars, the body finally gave up on him, although he actually reckons he did well to last that long.

Because while those injury problems were partly self-inflicted (not undergoing cruciate surgery when advised, then lifting excessive weights in an effort to rebuild leg strength), Earley looks at the modern intercounty footballer and totally understands why so many are retiring once they hit 30.

Wrong stuff

“It was my decision to play through the knee (cruciate) injury,” he says. “I was 31 when that happened first, in training, but part of it was still attached, so I kept playing. Then I was one minute into the 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final against Meath and that’s when I really did the damage.

“Then I hurt my back. I was probably doing the wrong stuff, weight wise, to support my legs, and my knee. Again, who’s to blame for that? Myself. In 2011, and 2012, when I got back, that was painful, so there was a lot of managing it, and a lot of painkillers. Which is the reason I’m not playing now.”

Yet such are the changes to the intercounty game over the last five or six years he wonders whether he’d be playing on now, even at 30 or 31.

“I remember the first time I got asked, at 30, about retirement, and I was a little bit put back by the question.

“But now I would suggest that the county lifespan is going to seriously reduce. It’s inevitable. When I started out, it was still your two or three nights a week. And you still had time to socialise, and time to live your live, go to college and enjoy it.

“I just think the way is gone, it’s now 24/7, so I can’t see players doing it for more than seven, eight years. That would be the max.”

Earley also reckons the excessive time spent in the gym, possibly doing excessive weights, is also contributing to players burning out at a younger age.

“The groin and hip injuries, I think goes back to the time in the gym. There needs to more supervision, to get form correct, before you go on to weights. There’s always a rush to get weights on before you actually get your technique and form right. I learnt that myself, even towards the end of my career, trying to do stuff that you probably shouldn’t have been doing. I consider myself to be smart enough to know but I still let myself get caught.”

On hold

He also shares some concerns about players putting their studies or careers on hold to better their chances of playing intercounty football: “In fairness to the GPA that is something they are trying to educate the players on to not neglect their personal development, so that when their careers are finished they have something to fall back on.”

As for the way Kildare are going (two defeats in the opening two rounds of the Allianz League), and the sight of Dublin running away from everyone else in the Leinster championship, Earley – speaking at the Topaz Cash for Clubs launch event, at the Aviva Stadium – also questions whether the GAA are doing enough to keep it a level playing field.

“I would never panic in February. But Kildare realised, at the start, we needed to get back into Division One. The chance isn’t gone, if we can win the remaining five games, but certainly those two games were very important to get that ball rolling.

“But right now Dublin are just so far ahead of the rest. I saw them against Donegal, and the scary thing is that they have so many players still to come in.

“And then they have all these young lads who are performing and performing so well. That’s just going to build such competition within the squad that. So I don’t think anyone is going to challenge them in Leinster. They would be my favourites for the All-Ireland.”

“It will level off at some stage. But for the next three or four years, I can’t see it. I said before that sponsorship should be pooled. Because before a ball is kicked, before a training session is done, there is an advantage. Now I know Dublin will argue that they have a lot of clubs and it filters down to the clubs but let’s look at it fairly: if you get a huge sponsorship deal in one county and a smaller one in another, there is a huge disadvantage.

“And you’re being penalised because of where you are geographically in Ireland. Pool it and divvy it out evenly. That’s the best way, I think.”

“Like, in Kildare, we did a few fundraising events so we could go away on a training camp. And it was painful. And it was difficult. But we had a committed bunch of players who wanted to improve by going away on training camps. I really don’t think a county player, with all the time they put into it, should have to do that.”