GAA and careers (Impacts, benefits etc) Is Shane O'Donnell the new template here?

CorkFenian

Have to say I was surprised to read this earlier, am I missing something here, thought radiographer job was hard to get, involves years of study and pays well

I believe a lot of high profile players becoming account managers and hard to blame him, the demands are such that very odd to see a dentist\doctor playing hurling at a high level anymore. Best of luck to Flanagan by the way, some player :)

If you're not a GAA top 5% player is GAA something that benefits the squad player in intercounty hurling\football in their regular career?I would be curious to see if this is the case, my personal opinion would be that it doesn't.

I believe a recent study in Ulster GAA showed a disproportionate amount of players who were development coaches, would be interested to hear any views on this, personally I believe the GAA players should win as much as they can when young and ideally get out of it, because its a young guys game right now and follow Shane O'Donnell's training regime, (obviously I'm not saying everyone needs to be a Fulbright scholar and pHD but you know what I mean) take long blocks off for freshness and career opportunities.

https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/something-had-to-change-seamus-flanagan-on-switching-jobs-to-balance-hurling-and-family-life/a1993740505.html

CorkFenian

For me Shane O'Donnells way has to be way forward would cut off a lot of unnecessary training time and waste of resources especially for an "amateur game"

shockframe

I looked at the programme of the 2009 Football final recently.

What I noted from it was that there was something like on average 1 in 10 from both squads that were working outside of General jobs. (Engineers)

Limerick had Mulcahy and Flanagan (until recently) in that category but everyone else was in a role that facilitated pursuing Inter-County.

Ciaran Mcdonald was interviewed a few years ago about his role as a pipelayer.

He was delighted as only a fraction of the people he worked with had any interest in Football and he could go about his business without any hassle.

shockframe

And also just to add Shane O Donnell must be one of the most unique players ever involved in Hurling.

CorkFenian

I think the average GAA senior panelist will look back and go what a waste of time the overall experience was in terms of overkill training, you hear comments like GAA players as fit as rugby\premiership etc, just not true (I've a lot of time for GAA and the training involved but its not possible without the recovery times for full time athletes)

CorkFenian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122367839#Comment_122367839

Yes hes definitely an outlier. I don't think more people realise its possible to do the same, his early start (hat trick at 19 in an AI final) definitely helped mould his later outlook and fair play to him.