Giving a little back to Darbyshire
Munster won thanks to a late, late penalty from Ronan O’Gara, ending a losing sequence of five consecutive games against the eastern province.
Happiness for many in Cork and Limerick this morning, then, as well as many other points on the southern half of the compass.
And at least one household in the north of England: Paul Darbyshire’s house.
Darbyshire, a Warrington native, stepped down formally as Munster strength and conditioning coach a couple of weeks ago after four years working with the province.
He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease last September.
Strength and conditioning work is a curious challenge for a professional rugby player.
It’s a necessary part of his preparation: these are essential building blocks that need to be laid. The savage collisions that routinely occur could hardly be survived otherwise.
But lifting weights can also be wearyingly repetitive for even the most focused athlete.
“Paul made that work interesting,” said Denis Fogarty of Munster last week.
“He had a way of challenging you in the gym — if you were wrecked after doing three sets with a weight, for instance, he’d get you to try one more set, to see how you reacted under pressure or when you were fatigued.
“That’s how you get in a game, of course. Eventually you get so tired that it’s hard to concentrate, to keep getting up to make tackles and so on, and that’s exactly when you need to keep doing things properly. Paul knew that.
“That’s one reason the lads were so fond of him — he was very professional with us, he brought that real rugby league attitude to the job, and that was a huge help. The likes of Ronan (O’Gara) and Paul (O’Connell) have huge regard for him, and they’ve obviously trained with the very best for years.”
Beyond the four walls of the gym, Darbyshire’s personality had distinct, recognisable components.
In a sing-song, the rugby league man could hold his own, whipping out a guitar to accompany a version of ‘Heart of Gold’ that owed more in accent to the north of England than Neil Young’s native Canada.
Monopolising the television remote for the Discovery and History Channels when rooming with players.
And of course, the serial killers. Always the serial killers.
“God, yeah,” deadpans Fogarty.
“You’d be in training and Paul would come over, ‘you’ve got to read this book’, and at first you’d think maybe it was some sportsman’s autobiography, that there might be a lesson in it for you.
“Not at all. It’d be a book about serial killers that he’d found. Another one. I don’t think there’s a serial killer anywhere that he doesn’t know about. He’s an awful man for that. It’s a specialist subject.”
Munster Rugby are getting behind a charity cycle that’s being held this summer, the Munster Rugby Cycle for Paul Darbyshire & Motor Neurone Research.
It begins in Musgrave Park in Cork on Sunday June 19, with the Irish stages finishing at Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday June 21.
The cycle then moves to the UK, finishing in Warrington, Darbyshire’s home town, on Thursday June 23.
Look up mycharity.ie//event/munster_rugby_charity_cycle for more details.
“It’s a really worthy cause,” says Denis Fogarty. “I’ll be riding as much of it as I can, we’re all supporting it, and we’re hoping other sports figures will come in to back it. We’ll be appealing to everyone for support.”
There’s more to a good coach’s relationship with his players than simply increasing their personal bests at the bench press or in the 40m sprints. Thus Darbyshire with the Munster players.
When Fogarty took some body blows in the media a few years ago, rather than simply offering sympathetic platitudes, Darbyshire offered practical help with the pots and pans.
“Yeah, someone in the paper said one time that I needed to lose a few pounds, and fair play to Paul, he was a big help — he showed me what to cook and how to do it, and he helped me out that way. Any of the players would tell you that’s typical of the man — he’d go out of his way to help you get a little more out of yourself.”
They learned that lesson well. Now they want to give a little back to him.
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
