Money has to be spent - Ó Sé
May 18, 2016
Former Kerry footballer Darragh O'Se in the Sky Sports box
To be successful at inter-county level these days counties have no option but to loosen the purse strings, says Darragh Ó Sé, and fundraising is a necessary evil.
"We were boarding the plane in Shannon last Thursday when I ran into someone I wasn't expecting to," he writes in today's Irish Times. "Myself and Tomás and a few other broken down old Kerrymen were heading to New York for a fund-raising weekend when who did I bump into only the former Monaghan player, Nudie Hughes.
Ó Sé goes on to say that at first he didn't want to let on why he was flying out but Nudie knew what the Kerry lads were at, as he was going out for fundraising on behalf of Monaghan.
"He knew well what we were at. They had a golf day organised and a big dinner and whatnot after it. We had a heap of stuff to go to in Manhattan over the four days. When we were over there, the people in the various places we landed said that Roscommon were out a couple of weeks before and that Armagh are on their way out next week or the week after.
"It's a rat race now. Serious business but a rat race at the back of it all. It's great for ex-players like me to be lucky enough to get heading over and showing the face for the weekend but the long and short of it is that we're turning up with our hands out and the cap looking to be filled. We're all at it because we all have to be at it.
"To be any way competitive, you need to be getting together as a county team four or five times a week. Or if you're not getting together, the player needs to be in the gym or in the pool on his own.
"One way or the other, a county player will be costing the county board money just about every day of the week. You're talking mileage, you're talking transport, you're talking grub, you're talking hydration, you're talking physio, you're talking logistics and stats and video analysis and everything else. Money has to be spent."
