FORMER KERRY FOOTBALL star Aidan O’Mahony has opened up on how the fallout from the asthma-related failed drugs test “drained my love for the sport”.

The five-time All-Ireland winner tested positive for the use of Salbutamol after the Kingdom’s loss to Tyrone in the 2008 All-Ireland final, but was later cleared after the GAA’s anti-doping committee found that the levels of the banned substance in his system were ”consistent with the inhalation of the substance” for medical use.

O’Mahony used a Salbutamol inhaler to treat his chronic asthma, and had taken between eight and ten puffs while suffering from the flu in the lead-up to the final.

Promoting his new autobiography, Unbroken, on RTÉ’s Game On last night, the two-time All-Star reflected:

“The inhaler thing was something that totally floored me. The media ran with the story: ‘O’Mahony fails drugs test’. That’s a great thing for people to beat you with a stick, especially after the Donnacha O’Connor incident.

“Sympathy was in very short supply. So, when that happened, I found I was getting messages and people were sending stuff to my house in Cork. In some sense, people knew it was something to do with an inhaler but it obviously wasn’t a good enough story. People tried to put a different spin on it.

“I found those three or four months very tough. Every day, every week you’re trying to give your side of the story to people. People you’d talk to would have no interest. They just wanted to hear the darker side of it. A lot of it totally drained me and I think it drained my love for the sport I was brought up on. It changed my personality a lot.

“The amount of messages I got from people who have asthma and whatnot was frightening. They were saying, ‘You’re here having to explain yourself in front of a committee with a two-year ban over you’. When it [was] finished with… I just found I had an awful dislike and hate for GAA.”

O’Mahony, who retired from inter-county football in late 2017 after 13 years in green and gold, also delved deeper into the aforementioned O’Connor incident.

The Rathmore clubman came in for heavy criticism following the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final replay win over Cork, when O’Connor was sent off after the Kerryman theatrically hit the deck in a delayed response to a slap.

“I was totally responsible for it myself,” O’Mahony told Marie Crowe. “It was embarrassing for myself, it was embarrassing for my family.

“When you’re in the public eye, as a Garda, number one, you’re never away from people. You’re always going to be meeting people.

O'Mahony lying on the ground following an altercation with O'Connor. Donall Farmer / INPHO Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO

“For me, there is no part in GAA or sport for that behaviour, feigning an injury. In Kerry, football is a religion. You grew with some of the tales of the Kerry golden years, all these guys and what they gave for Kerry football.

“When something like that happens, sympathy is in short supply. It was tough. I was the one who caused the whole thing but at the same time, trying to move on from something like that, that moment didn’t define my 13 or 14 years in a Kerry jersey.”

“From a young age I was a total introvert,” he added. “I’d keep myself to myself. I’d say people thought I was a strange personality, or very deep. I was one of these people who never dealt with anything, whether I was on the pitch or off the pitch.

“I always had this perception of myself that I had this that people had this kind of mindset that, ‘aw he’s teak tough on the pitch’. I thought then that I had to be that person.

“I thought if I talked about my issues or my challenges it would be seen as a weakness. That was a kind of template I followed from a young age when I was dealing with the asthma, or dealing with mental health.

“I thought I couldn’t I couldn’t talk about it – it would have been a stigma, that it would have been a weakness and I just let the whole thing snowball into something I couldn’t deal with.”

You can listen to the full interview with Aidan O’Mahony from 31 minutes here >