Down weeks are not rest weeks in inter-county football

Back in the good old days of inter-county football, training was every Tuesday and Thursday night with a match on Sunday. Weight training consisted of hauling bales of hay or breeze blocks you threw around all week on the farm or on the building site.

Recovery was a bag of Tayto, bottle of Cidona and a Cadburys wafer snack bar on the way home from training. Then when you got home a cup of tea and half a box of Kimberly's and half a box of Mikados.

Once you got word the following weekend was off from playing a match you were organising a weekend away in Salthill or Tralee, and the chances of anyone training during the non-match week was very remote.

How different this picture will look for every inter-county team next week. After round five of the Allianz League has finished up strength and conditioning coaches were licking their lips in anticipation.

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They were thinking of the amount of physical training they can expose the player to in the 13-14 days until round six commences.

This mindset is also applied to the various coaches. They also would have identified aspects of the tactical and technical side of the preparation so far that needs development and certain tweaks based on how the performances have been thus far.

How the downtime between round five and six of the league is managed will go a long way in determining how the players perform in the next couple of games. If the training is too hard and the players do too much they are exposed to a high risk of fatigue or