Players should have known about referee's mic, says Jack McCaffrey
Echoing Colm Cooper’s sentiments yesterday, the Clontarf man has yet to watch RTÉ’s All-Ireland Day documentary in which the Dublin and Kerry footballers’ discussions with David Coldrick were captured.
However, he was relieved to be told he doesn’t figure in the footage prominently and admitted: “I wouldn’t be a big fan of my granny watching a show and hearing me use curse words on telly!”
While agreeing liberties were taken, McCaffrey believes the largely positive reaction to the documentary should encourage similar programmes to be produced.
Had Jim Gavin known about the microphone on Coldrick’s person, McCaffrey reckons his manager wouldn’t have told his players about it.
“It’s funny, I’d say if Croke Park had got on to Jim and told him that we were going to be miced up, he wouldn’t have told us for fear that it would distract from the game.
"It’s a funny one, by all accounts, it was an excellent documentary and players around the country loved it.
“But, at the same time, you do have to be very careful that lads don’t get an unfairly bad image put out there because they’re just going out to represent their county as best they can.”
He added: “Everyone here in the GAA is on the same team, everyone’s trying to improve our games as best they can and put out a good image. I don’t know how they’d go about doing it, but if they can make any more productions like that that were so well received, it would be fantastic.”
Footballer of the year McCaffrey is in camp with the Ireland International Rules squad ahead of Saturday’s game against Australia.
He’s likely to be a marked man after his exploits this year, which was in stark contrast to a mediocre campaign in 2014.
"I was thinking about it the other day,” he recalled. “There was probably a bit of it was complacency, having had a good year in 2013 and winning the All-Ireland. I probably got a little bit...you know, took the eye off the ball. In the early rounds of the league and even the early championship games, it was always ’ah, there’s plenty of time, I’ll get in at some point’.
“That set my season back a bit and, when I did get in, our season abruptly ended so there was no time to push on from there.” It never got to the stage where McCaffrey was doubting his abilities.
“I wouldn’t say I questioned myself because you’re pretty much flat out training. You don’t really have time to sit down and over-think these things.
“I set out this year to be in the best possible shape that I could be, playing as well as I could play. If I wasn’t picked when I was doing that, then fair enough. The better man wins. But, thankfully, I was picked. Jim and the rest of the management team are very fair. If you do have a dip in form, they’ll tell you exactly why.”
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