“It is creating an elitism about county hurlers, the fact they are playing regularly during the summer months whereas the fellas sitting at home with the club, they are not even on the pitch. The pitches are empty so who are the hurlers in this place?

"The guys who play for the inter-county team. That’s a dangerous precedent to be setting,” Cody told the Melbourne-based G’Day GAA podcast.

“The inevitability of all that, if that were to continue, is they see themselves as inter-county players. The club, ‘sure I’ll play with them whenever I feel like it or sometime’. That creates dangerous possibilities for the association.

“Semi-professionalism, professionalism and the GAA can never go together. Just can’t happen. People will argue it is there in some places, with, maybe, some managers.

"It is certainly not there with me. It goes against everything the GAA stands for.

“I was at a preview [for the Wild Geese trophy] with Joe Canning and Padraic Mannion, I was very happy to hear they were saying, very clearly, it can’t go to professional.

“Look at the inter-county minor set-up. Kilkenny played 11 games at U17 level. They lost three games yet they played in the All-Ireland final. They had two round-robins, yet during that time they never played with their club.

"If you are getting lads at 16 and 17 with a greater attachment to their county team than their club, where are you going? It is dangerous.”

Cody, who is heading into his 21st season as Kilkenny manager, has called for a paring back of inter-county demands. Preparations, he said, have reached “saturation levels”.

A recent ERSI report told of players giving 31 hours a week to inter-county commitments. The reality, according to Cody, is that a number of these hours are not prescribed by inter-county managers.

Players, such is the desire to succeed at the top-level, are doing more than what is recommended by management teams and S&C coaches.

They are putting pressure on themselves to do a bit of extra stuff when, actually, the better advice would be not to be doing it. It is a mistake they are making. They think ‘the more I do, the fitter I become’. They need to pull back a small bit and just be guided by the person who knows best.

“I would be concerned that so many players are erring on the side of doing too much, rather than realising it is still a game of skill.

"You don’t have to be an absolute ball of muscle to do everything right on the hurling field; get your head tuned, get your head right, stay comfortable with yourself, make sure you are happy in your job, you are happy in your studies, and that you are not under pressure.

"That is the biggest responsibility on managers to make sure that aspect of players’ lives is catered for.”

The 11-time All-Ireland-winning boss believes the new championship format introduced this year is not sustainable and wants the entire calendar reexamined. He’s in favour of abolishing pre-season competitions.

“You play Walsh Cup, you play league, you play championship. How about looking at the whole thing and going at it with a blank canvass?

"Do we need all those competitions? Certainly, we don’t need those early-season competitions like the Walsh Cup.

“You play a league now and every match is so crucial because you lose a few and you are in relegation. It’s a championship where you play five other teams.

"You turn around and play pretty much the same teams in the championship all over again. There is something worth looking at there.

“There are enough bright people in the association, between club and county, to come up with what is best for everybody. What’s there right now is not best for everybody.”