Seán Cavanagh fears the introduction of blood testing could result in an increase in doping offences in the GAA whether they are deliberate or not. Part of the fear, he said, was not being able to tell the difference.

The GAA expanded its anti-doping programme this year to include both blood and urine testing, and while Cavanagh welcomes the move, he also warned of the consequences. Without raising any direct suspicion of his opponents, the Tyrone footballer believes certain players may well be consuming illegal doping products.

“I’d say there’s probably a reasonable chance that some guys are. Obviously there was a case last year where one of the Monaghan lads, and what not, so . . . ,” he said.

“I suppose there’s that much available in terms of supplements now, and a lot of guys just aren’t educated enough to know what they can and can’t take. It’s a complete minefield at the moment.

“I’m not all that into it. I’m still stuck in the Tracker bar and Jaffa Cake era 10 years ago. But look, some guys are hugely into it nowadays, so I’d say there probably is a chance, whether purposely or not purposely, there probably are guys that are playing that have something in the system that shouldn’t be there. That’s just a fact of life.”

Banned steroid

This time last year Monaghan footballer Thomas Connolly tested positive for banned steroid stanozolol, after an out-of-competition test taken at the Monaghan county training session on February 13th.

The mandatory four-year ban was reduced to two years after Connolly claimed the steroids were not being taken intentionally, but instead had been recommended to him in tablet form by a work colleague to help relieve his back pain.

Although the tablets were labelled as containing oxandrolone – another anabolic steroid – further testing found they contained stanozolol, the steroid Ben Johnson tested positive for at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

The GAA’s anti-doping hearing committee accepted Connolly’s claim that he hadn’t deliberately used any doping product, even though he’d chosen to accept tablets from someone with no medical qualifications and without seeking the advice of anyone in the Monaghan set-up.

For Cavanagh, speaking in Croke Park at the launch of the 2016 EirGrid Under-21 football championship, no player can be too careful these days, especially as he witnesses the use of supplements and other so-called training aids.

“Nowadays there are so much proteins, branch- chained amino acids, I don’t even understand half the stuff the boys are taking to be honest. I suppose you have to recognise that there is a risk there, and guys are taking that chance. You know seven, eight years ago, whenever we were tested, the worst thing you could probably fall foul of is a dodgy Lemsip,” he said.

Intrusive nature

Late last year, after the GAA confirmed the introduction of blood and urine testing, Dublin footballer Bernard Brogan questioned the intrusive nature of needles, even though it has been standard procedure in other sports for the last few years. Cavanagh agreed the needle was somewhat intrusive but was open to any testing procedure that sufficiently deters any illegal doping practices.

“You have to accept that you do want that level playing field. There are so many supplements out there, so many guys into strength and conditioning, stuff being used, it is right enough that players nowadays are tested,” he said.

“So I wouldn’t have a problem with the blood testing as such. It’s the time and way in which it is done that sometimes can be very frustrating. But if you were to tell me that the blood testing could be done instead of the urine testing, and it could be done in 10 seconds, I’d say most players would be happy enough to do that.

“It’s the timing, sometimes, that can cause an issue. We’ve seen it at training on a Tuesday night, an hour from home, and guys are sitting at a quarter-to-twelve at night waiting to give their sample, when they have to get up for work the next morning at seven o’clock.”

Blood testing, however, is normally used in conjunction with urine testing to improve the detection of illegal products such as EPO or human growth hormone, which are much harder to detect by urine alone.

There is also the fear, Cavanagh says, given the random nature of GAA testing, that some players may never be tested: “For me I’d say it’s probably been on average once a season. There’s certain seasons I’ve been tested three or four times. Some seasons you might not be tested at all.”