Looking back now, Brian Fenton accepts it was "completely wrong" for members of the Dublin football panel to breach Covid-19 guidelines earlier this year by taking part in a training session.
Dublin manager Dessie Farrell was suspended for 12 weeks and the county was stripped of home advantage for a league game as punishment.
"It was amazing the hype around it," said Fenton at the launch of the new Avonmore Pro-Oats product.
"At the time I was like, ‘Jesus, this is completely blown out of proportion’. That was my own inner narrative. In retrospect we were completely wrong with the way the country was, and the cases were at the time. It was certainly wrong of us. We felt the effects of that with Dessie’s suspension.
"Just at the time I couldn’t believe the attention it got. I always give this example: I was training that morning in Inisfails and the whole idea of outdoors and the safety of that. Later that morning, I was at a funeral. We did a guard of honour outside our club for a member who had passed away. I met more people on the road at the guard of honour than I had the morning of training.
"But, in retrospect, we were wrong. The role models we set ourselves and the example we like to set, I think we admitted that at the time.
"It was new to me in terms of the exposure – the tweets, the negativity it caused. And we’re very, very sorry for that."
Avonmore Protein Milk are teaming up with Dublin footballer Brian Fenton and Kilkenny hurler Eoin Murphy, to launch the new Avonmore Pro-Oats product. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Asked if it made life difficult being an amateur sportsperson whose photo was appearing on the front page of a national newspaper for reasons other than what he did on the pitch, Fenton responded, "Yes and no".
"You’re a GAA player and as much you are amateur you’re on this pedestal, expected to behave in the right way," he said.
"But at the same time, yes. A couple of crime correspondents had pieces in papers about how wrong we were. I’d love to name a few but I won’t. That takes a toll on your family more so, my father, his mates and his interactions. My boss was very sound, he sort of brushed it aside but it can [make life hard], there’s no doubt it can.
"I’ve been very lucky as a player. Relatively speaking I’ve had positive press, positive engagements, positive stories. But if you’re sent off in a final, or on the other side of that, undoubtedly it can have a negative effect on your life and how people see you even though they might not know you.
"Look, it comes with the territory. I’m well aware of that as an inter-county footballer. But at the time, yeah, I probably got more stares than high fives.
"Look, hopefully they’ll remember me for the footballer and not the front page of the Irish Independent, please God."
Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Brian Fenton and Eoin Murphy who have nine All-Ireland Championship medals between them were representing the Gaelic Players Association, of whom along with the GAA, Avonmore Protein Milk are a long-standing supporter.
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