FOR almost three months, Brendan Rogers pretty much locked himself away from the world.
The ability to work from home, the absence of structured training and the fact that his mother, a retired nurse, had rejoined the workforce in a lower-risk capacity meant he saw best to sit tight.
All he’s known since he’s been knee high has been running to football and hurling.
The Slaughtneil man estimates that in an average week at the height of the club season, he would spend 24 hours on pitch sessions alone.
When you accumulate gym sessions, recovery, video analysis and all the rest – he stops short of claiming that his mother doesn’t still supply the meals – it adds up to a packed diary.
Playing county football alongside club football and hurling is a demanding lifestyle. For a while, he even crammed county hurling in too.
At 26, this has been the first significant break he has had for as long as he can remember.
All-Ireland campaigns become National Leagues become championships and become club campaigns again. The wheel never stops turning.
And so as much as he’s looking forward to getting back on now, he needed off for a while.
It’s all a choice. He does it because he loves doing it. It is the lifestyle he wants to lead. But that doesn’t make it any less sore on the body.
“It just becomes very, very tiring. It’s nice that if I choose at the minute to train or do a gym session, it’s at the house, it’s of my own accord, it’s nice and easy and there’s no travelling.
“As soon as you’re done, you just go back inside. I feel like I get more done and get more out of it because there’s more quality in it from wanting to do it, rather than having to be there.
“Maybe it’s because the whole country’s at it but most people seem to have bought into the idea that doing the work at home is more beneficial for you in the long run.”
Having turned 26 in April, he actually finds himself on the oldies’ team when Slaughtneil training is split into young v old.
“The average age is always a year or so below me. I’m stuck on the old hands this long time.”
The sustainability of his own model is not really the issue.
Slaughtneil is full of Brendan Rogers’, combining club hurling and football. Some 28 of them play dual codes. But outside the unique environs of the Halfgayne Road, they are a rarity.
Even mixing club and county puts greater and greater strain on the GAA, and by definition, the players.
After three solid months of the GAA uniting in helping charitable causes, the return to play means the return to arguing.
Since dates were announced, the make-up of club and county fixture schedules have taken hold of the debate.
Rogers doesn’t want to see the day coming when it splits, but he fears it’s inevitable.
“I think at some stage, that will be the case – you will either play for one or the other. It will go semi-professional, you won’t play any club games and you just become a county player.
“You’ll maybe play at your club until you get scouted for your county team. That would be the only way you’ll ever get around having fixture overlaps because they’re trying to make the club campaign shorter and shorter to get it into the calendar year, then make inter-county shorter and shorter, but using the same players to do both.
“The overlap’s there. For counties that get to an All-Ireland final, it wrecks their club championship because it becomes a Wednesday-Sunday thing.
“The likes of Dublin, it’s such a difficult championship to win because you play your first round in April, and then you play no championship until September, and yet you could be out in April.
“It’s completely bizarre. That’s of no benefit to anybody, that. You’re peaking twice a year for the same competition. It doesn’t make sense.
“Some way or another, it will go professional. People will hate it but we’re the only sport in the world that like to do both.”
In that scenario, he has questions too. Where’s the longevity in it? What happens if you’re told at 29 or 30 you no longer meet the physical requirements? Funding it?
But mostly, the wrench of choosing one over the other.
“Maybe because of the success of our club, it’d be very, very hard to walk away from our club. Very hard.”
HE will be back at it from Wednesday, when clubs are officially allowed to re-open following the GAA’s decision to move up its original timescale.
Rogers admits that he’s not particularly comfortable with the idea of returning just yet, but that he wants to be back.
Ultimately for him, it comes down to trusting that his team-mates will look after themselves properly in order to protect everyone in their presence.
“You have to put the trust in the other players that they’ve followed things correctly, and if they do get symptoms they can hold their hands up.
“That’s fine if that’s the case, I don’t think anyone would have any issues as long as there’s a lot of transparency on that. I know the guys would look after themselves because they all have the best interests, but you don’t know what other teams are like.
“You trust people to be honest with your own group but when you go to play another team, do you even know? Hayfever could easily be mistaken if you’re on the pitch with somebody, something as simple as that.
“You just wouldn’t know and that could make anyone feel uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be dying about it but I would go back. Obviously I’d been keen to get back at it. Training on your own is grim,” he laughs.
Both the Derry football and hurling championships have been reshaped to maximise the 11-week window, something that has drawn praise in recent days, particularly in light of how other counties have treated the same timeframe.
The tug-of-war over players creates a constant battleground these days and Rogers believes that county players would have been happy enough to let the inter-county season slide in 2020, given the circumstances.
“I was always of the opinion of not caring if we miss one season if it stops people from dying. So what if the GAA doesn’t get a championship this year? It doesn’t really matter.
“It’s like most things, it’s not until somebody high up has somebody affected by it that anything actually changes.
“It wouldn’t bother me if the championship didn’t get played because I know it’ll be there next year.
“The only thing people seem to be concerned about is getting out to play again. I think every county player would be happy enough that they’re getting to play for their club this year.
“At the end of a pandemic, take what you can get. You’re getting to play with your friends. As great and all as it is to play for your county, a privilege, it’s not the worst thing in the world.
“There’s more people participating in club and at this point, it’s participating and getting back to some sort of normality. The club is the only way you can do that.
“It’s easier to facilitate county in terms of the number of teams, number of players and infection control, but that’s not what the GAA is about. It’s about participation, it’s about community, it’s about your club.
“That’s where it starts, so why not worry about it first and inter-county after?”
The break is over though, and what classes as normal life for Brendan Rogers will soon resume.
It’s the only way he’d have it.
