Tony Davis: 'The GAA is going to have to wake up to the fact the juggernaut has become too big'

speaks with Tony Davis about the state of play in the GAA today.

The sports-nostalgia industrial complex has us all in its grasp right now, and no matter what your preference is thereâs a TV channel somewhere thatâll cater to you.
Rugby, soccer, athletics, golf â all the classics are being reheated and served anew.
The same with Gaelic games, the back catalogue serving up plenty of past encounters. One rich lode is the late-eighties rivalry between Cork and Meath, which accounts for the frequent sightings on your television of Brian Stafford and Larry Tompkins, David Beggy and Niall Cahalane.
That doesnât mean all the protagonists hunker down on the couch when those games come on, mind.
âTo be honest, I wouldnât be pushed about watching those games again,â says Tony Davis.
The Skibbereen man was a potent weapon on that Cork side, slashing upfield from wing-back to support his forwards, so itâs surprising to hear that a choice between Coronation Street and the drawn â88 final isnât a clear-cut decision.
âWell, I wouldnât be too interested in Coronation Street either, but I certainly wouldnât watch the old games. If one of them was on when I sat down I might watch some of it but I donât really look at them. Iâve moved on.
âIt can be frustrating to see those games again because we lost so much and could have won a lot more. Iâm not in a position where I can have any influence over it any more, so I wouldnât be that good at going back over the old games I played in.
âWhat I do remember is the craic and the people who were involved. The places we went and the good times we had. Iâd often bump into people whoâd say to me, âdo you remember such and such an incident in such and such a gameâ, and Iâd have to say, ânot a clueâ.
Itâs like it happened to a different person, to be honest.
After he finished playing Davis gave years to The Sunday Game, of course. Heâs still familiar with the modern game but he doesnât miss the level of homework that punditry required.
âI watch quite a bit of football, but in fairness I wouldnât as au fait as I used to be with all the players on the Antrim and Carlow panels, for instance.
âThe games Iâd find interesting I watch â the likes of Dublin, Kerry, Galway, Donegal, and if Cork were playing at home Iâd head to watch them.
âBut the days are gone when Iâd be trying to keep tabs on who was injured, or who was on or off a panel. When I was with The Sunday Game it was very enjoyable, a great time, but thereâs a lot of work goes into it as well, youâve a fair bit of preparation.
âMost fellas would be able to name Dublinâs forwards, for instance, but knowing something about the fourth sub another county might bring on would be more of a challenge.
âAnd you canât fool people. The GAA public is very knowledgeable on players, on the nuances of the game, and people can always tell immediately when youâre bluffing.â
Davisâs reference to the enjoyment he knocked out of intercounty life is significant, given a suggestion from one of his former teammates that an away league game was often an invitation to have some fun after the final whistle.
âWe had some fun the night before a few games, too, but when we played we were serious.
âIâm involved with Skibbereen and a lot of them are young lads, and Iâd be thinking sometimes theyâd be as well off to head out for a pint, particularly when I saw The Last Dance there recently, the Michael Jordan documentary.
âI enjoyed it immensely, I thought it was fantastic. What struck me was the time when Dennis Rodman, one of the greatest rebounders ever, headed off with Hulk Hogan on the beer to Las Vegas after a play-off game â and then came back into the group, and the players just accepted it, âthatâs Dennis, he needs to do that to clear his headâ.
âIf that were to happen with a GAA team theyâd be hung out to dry, the family would be shamed. Thereâd nearly be an X hung over the front door of the house.â
Davisâs unhappiness with the current inter county scene is nuanced: he points to the scale of the enterprise as the issue: âI think itâs become too serious in that the entire juggernaut is just too big.
âToo big for the county boards to support and for players, as amateurs, to be normal, decent, functioning adults as well as an intercounty hurler or footballer.
âSometimes I think itâs impossible for them because they donât know, at their core, who they are â their identity is wrapped up in being a footballer or a hurler. Their whole being can be wrapped up in that rather than the person they are, but if anything goes wrong â you get a bad injury or youâre dropped â then what?
Youâre gone from the WhatsApp group you were in for five or six years and where are you then? Gone from the bubble, that bubble where every waking moment is given over to preparation.
âIâd be worried about them, the way the whole scene is just too big. I donât know if they really enjoy it, even if they wonât admit that.
âMaybe itâs because Iâm too old-fashioned â or Iâve seen too much of life - but Iâd be worried about them. Itâs like the first group of first professional players in rugby â speaking as an outside observer, these intercounty players are giving up too much of themselves.â The post-pandemic downturn is expected to affect all sectors, and Davis feels that the GAA will have to adjust itself accordingly.
âExpectation is going to have to come down. Nowadays when the All-Ireland is won the captainâs speech goes on for fifteen minutes, because he has to thank so many support staff. Youâre practically bringing a second bus to Croke Park just for those people.
âI donât think that can be sustainable in an amateur sport. During the week there were reports of lads being left go in Australian Rules, the Australian Rugby Union is broke, all due to the pandemic.
âThose are professional sports, but theyâve had to draw their horns in to a huge extent.
âYet here we are in Cork with PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh â and whether we like it or not thatâs part of the county board â there are intercounty hurling and football teams to be sustained from senior all the way down ... there has to be a reckoning. Do you need all these people? Iâm not sure you do.
Then you tie that to the commitment these guys are putting in at intercounty level â when six or eight weeks lead-in and preparation for a game, to me, is enough for anyone.
Davis admires the physical conditioning of the modern GAA player: âDonât get me wrong, these players are supreme athletes.
âBut you have to look at the injuries. These arenât collision sports like rugby, but when intercounty players slam into each other the collisions are huge.
âI was down in PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh at one stage last year and the Tipperary hurling team walked past me, and I was asking myself, âare these guys genetically modified?â â Iâm six feet tall but I was looking up at most of them.
âTheyâre phenomenal athletes, and itâs the same for every county, in football and hurling.
âSo when they hit each other you see shoulder injuries, all sorts of injuries you wouldnât have seen as much long ago.
âLooking at pictures of us playing in our own time, we all look skinny â we were probably trained for running rather than physical contact.â
Jamesie OâConnor recently echoed Davisâs comments, remarking in this paper that players in footage from the nineties donât fill out the jerseys in the same way modern players do.
âHeâs right, the tight jerseys came in with Armagh to make sure lads couldnât grab hold of them, and then their players really bulked up, they were big boys.
âWe had bigger jerseys, but we also werenât as built up, whereas now even at club level the ratio of matches to gym and physical preparation is ridiculous.
âI donât know if that gym culture serves a psychological need, but the GAA is going to have to wake up to the fact that the juggernaut has become too big.
âItâs too big a price to pay in the lives of those who are playing â they might disagree, and their managers might disagree, because thereâs a whole industry there to support all of that.â
As for his own county, heâs optimistic about Corkâs chances of progress when the lockdown finally ends.
âIâd be hopeful, definitely. Theyâve done well in Division Three and I donât see anything wrong with being in Division Three â they learn to win games, they get their playing system right, all of that.
âTo win an All-Ireland you have to be operating at the very highest level, but Cork arenât at that level yet. Itâs an ideal time for them to be getting into Division Two â the younger players are getting experience, the U20s who won the All-Ireland are a year older and theyâll be 21 when the games come back.
âWhat they have in particular is some good forwards. Thatâs what gives me hope, a forward 30 or 40 yards from goal making the right decision under pressure because he has options inside him.
âColm OâNeill is gone now, but when he was available, if he were missing or if the Hurleys were injured, then youâd be struggling in the inside line.
âI hope they stick with these young lads and give them a go, and thatâll be positive for Cork.â
And elsewhere?
âThe lockdownâs been a disaster for Dublin and for Dessie (Farrell, manager) in particular.
âJim Gavin walks away with five in a row, the coronavirus strikes and Dessie is left in the lurch. God knows how Dublin will be when they come back.
âI think the break may help Kerry, though, because their young lads will be a year older, a year stronger. The likes of David Clifford and Sean OâShea are very good, obviously, but theyâll be stronger again. Theyâll be hard to beat.
âItâs good for some and bad for others, but one thing it may do is even things out at inter county level.â
Heâll be busy until then. Scheduled to retire from An Garda SĂochĂĄna a few weeks ago, he stayed put: âI didnât actually retire in the end â I had a date for it, April 1st, and at the start of March it didnât appear to be that much of a deal, but the situation changed pretty fast.
âWhen I was supposed to go was when things started to change, and you couldnât very well sit at home if there was something you could do to help.
âWe didnât know what the future held in early April, but everyone was worried that we were facing an out and out pandemic â we didnât know if thereâd be a lot of lads out sick that would have to be covered for. I said Iâd stay on a couple of months. Hopefully itâll get better - it seems to be, anyway - but until then itâs a matter of 12-hour shifts.
âSo much for retirement!â