Seán Cavanagh concerned sledging could prove a threat to players’ mental health

Seán Cavanagh pulls up his jersey to reveal several red scars down the front of his chest. At first glance they look like claw marks, as if he’s just been wrestling with a grizzly bear.

His left knee is badly scratched too, and there's a strange purple bruising behind his right knee, as if he's just been bitten by some venomous reptile. These, says Cavanagh, are all perfectly normal souvenirs from an Ulster football championship match between Tyrone and Donegal.

What worries Cavanagh, however, aren’t the physical scars from games like last Sunday, but the mental ones – and the increasingly nasty level of sledging, which for players with less thicker skin may do more permanent damage. Things have got so bad, says Cavanagh, he fears some players might take that level of mental scarring to an extreme end result.

“You don’t need me to tell you there was plenty of off-the-ball stuff happening,” says Cavanagh. “So ach, I’m bumped and bruised, but none more so than you’re normally used to. It was a typical Ulster championship game, and after 13 or 14 years of playing in them, you sort of get used to what your body is going to feel like the next day. I’m sure there are a few Donegal men exactly the same.

Both sides

“But people probably got away with things they shouldn’t have got away with. And it was the same from both sides. There’s no point in pointing fingers. It was just the type of game. That hot-tempered, win-at-all-costs type of Ulster championship game.

“Certainly there were a number of incidences that you would like to see dealt with more sternly. But until referees get help, until sideline officials and umpires start being really brave, and make calls, it’s not going to change. . . And on Sunday, probably a fair bit was let go. And as I said, both ourselves and Donegal are guilty of it.”

Yet the worst part of Sunday’s defeat in Ballybofey, he says, was the level of sledging that was going on – from both sides – something Cavanagh clearly isn’t comfortable with:

“There’s no doubting you’re going to get that now, the higher the level you go, and the more local rivalries you get. Cavan play Monaghan this weekend, and I’ve no doubt it’ll be rife there as well . . .

“Players probably did overstep the mark to a certain extent. You just have to be thick -skinned. At times it can be quite personal. You just have to accept it. I’ve said it before, it can be very, very personal and I know there were certain players . . that have been through tough times, and they were getting a fair bit of personal abuse.”

Indeed Cavanagh hardly needed to identify one of those team-mates as Cathal McCarron, who rejoined the Tyrone panel this year after taking time out due to his gambling addictions. But part of the problem and worry with sledging, he says, is that it’s so difficult to police.

“It’s nearly impossible,” he says. “I can look that way (Cavanagh looks away to the side), call you a name, say something about your family, your child, and no one will ever know. And look, it happens on both sides.

"I'm sure Michael Murphy got chatted to, when he was hitting free kicks. I got chatted to whenever I was hitting free kicks. It's disappointing to see, and I don't know how you can stop somebody whispering in somebody's ear . . .

“And there is so much talk now on mental health of players, and all that, and there are players in dark places. You would hope that it doesn’t come to the stage that some player tries to do something silly, or something like that, if he has been abused, or has had a bad game, and people have really gotten on his case.”

Under the skin

Cavanagh – speaking at a SuperValu sponsorship event – suggests opposing players will stop at nothing to get under the skin of their opposition. He saw all three cards himself on Sunday (a yellow, then a black and a red, for bringing down Donegal’s Paddy McGrath), although he insists that latter tackle wasn’t deliberate.

“ I think it’s tougher for guys that haven’t really had that before. But it certainly wouldn’t be a good advertisement for younger players, coming into the game, and if they were thinking of whether they wanted to go play soccer, or to go play rugby. There’s probably an awful lot more respect in those games than there is in GAA at the moment.

“You can only try and encourage the players to respect one another. At the end of the day we all have to look at each other when we are walking off the pitch. We normally shake each other’s hands, and at times you don’t feel like shaking that person’s hand that has been abusing you for 70 minutes. I know I could be in other players’ list as well. I am no angel. Michael Murphy is no angel.

Out of control

“An awful lot of players are at fault, but days like Sunday, it does happen a wee bit more than normal, and it does get out of control a wee bit. And it is something the GAA could take a look at overall and try and improve it. Whenever it gets deeper down into family history, girlfriends and wives, it gets a bit malicious at that stage.”

Donegal defender Neil McGee has also spoken about the close attention given to his captain, Michael Murphy, by Tyrone’s Justin McMahon. “He [Murphy] took a lot of abuse,” said McGee. “If I was doing it, would I get away with it? It’s his [Murphy’s] physical presence. If he [McMahon] tackled Ryan McHugh you would get a free, but Murphy is seen to be able to take it. There needs to be a bit more consistency. He’s suffering because he is so physical.”