If the clock was turned back, Kerry great Tomás Ó Sé would think twice about pursuing on an inter-county gaelic football career.

The demands being placed on gaelic footballers nowadays is way over the top according to the five-time All-Ireland winner and he believes the game has gone "too serious".

"If I was to step into a time capsule, whip 20 years off my age and get ready to embrace inter-county life in the most modern context, would I be looking forward to doing it all over again? Honestly, I don't think so," he writes in today's Irish Independent.

"Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of what I have seen and experienced and ultimately liked about the dressing-room I signed out of after 2013.

"The science being applied, the very firm reasons for everything being explained, the direction being given, proper stretching, analysis of opponents, all of that I enjoyed. And found necessary.

"Being with a more successful county makes it that bit easier too to motivate yourself to give so much of yourself because you know there's a better prospect of something at the end of the line.

"But the investment of time is really beginning to scare me. On the cusp of another inter-county season you have to ask the question: is it gone too serious?

"When players in some counties almost have to log in their movements away from the team environment, you have to wonder is it being taken too far?

"I'm glad I saw a different way. What I see in a 21-year-old now is so much different to the 21-year-old I was. I certainly wasn't being killed like they are now. We trained hard, just as hard as players now, but there was switch-off. Now? I don't sense that emphasis on rest is there enough.

"One thing to leave your kit-bag in the corner at a quiet time of year but it's another thing to open your fridge door and see the labels laid out in chronological order or check into your emails and see the latest clip drop or the latest bit of advice to set you thinking again. The cycle, it seems, is never-ending.

"As players, we trained hard, but we played hard too. I'd say the balance was about 60/40. Today it might be as high as 90/10.

"It grates me personally when I hear teams back training in November and even October, irrespective of how early the previous season had been parked.

"Teams training through Christmas? Give me strength."

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