Pull the other one
LOUISE SMITH is smiling through gritted teeth as she defends the merit of her profession.
“I get it on a regular basis,” she says of those who question the role and requirement of the physiotherapist in GAA. “It is usually as a statement of fact as opposed to a question. It is especially prevalent when it comes to football!”
Smith isn’t surprised. The Meath native has long known that to an older generation of GAA players and supporters, the role is one which continues to confound and confuse. Most doubters are of an era when only injuries to the bone (broken, dislocated, fractured) or severe concussion necessitated the withdrawal of a player from the field of play. To them, anyone claiming to suffer from problems involving the words: ‘torn’, ‘strained’, ‘pulled’ or ‘tightened’ in conjunction with alien concepts such as ‘hamstring’ and ‘ligament’ wasn’t the type of man you wanted in the ranks in the white heat of battle. So most injured parties buttoned their lips, and limped on, so not to be deemed cowards or soft.
“My take on it is that the intensity of club, not to mind county, has increased dramatically from those days,” she counters.
“County footballers are training five days a week between everything and they are holding down jobs along with that. The training sessions are very different also. Back then it was a few laps and then a game of ball.
“Nowadays training sessions are more complex and demanding. The main role of physiotherapists is to maintain the level of fitness that players have. Our objective is to prevent injury from the start, by loosening out their backs, and stretching them out before sessions and matches. And then when they do get injured, to help them recover quickly.”
But what of the old timers? Are there some nuggets of truth in their claims that we as people are softer now, not having had the physicality of daily labour and exercise which was part and parcel of their cycling from A to B. “The sedentary lifestyle of sitting at a desk all day is more conducive to getting injuries. You take the difference between a player who is working in an office and one who is on a farm.
“The farmer is more mobile throughout the day doing his farm work while the guy working in the office is sitting in the same position, often for hours on end and then may have to set into his car and drive to training. It is not that he is ‘softer’ than the farmer it is just that he is more vulnerable to injury.”
Pay attention, that lack of mobility in the hours before a training session or a match, can come back with a bang. “Quite a number of injuries can be traced back to different areas,” she explains.
Even what a player’s footwear may also be a factor in their likelihood of sustaining injury. “I have a big interest in bio mechanics. One of the things we are noticing is that boots are changing. These new lightweight boots are much narrower which means that players are not getting the correct bio mechanical support leading to injuries such as cruciate ligament problems. Players are also over training, not doing the right type of training and not taking care of injuries. All of these factors combine.”
Smith is one of two physiotherapists working with the Kerry footballers (with Kiara O’Brien assisting her at training and on match days). After completing her day job at the Oakdale Clinic in Tralee, Smith devotes most evenings to the county team.
For a 7pm session, the physios are at the ground two hours in advance to ensure everything is in place and that the get together runs on schedule. As players arrive, Smith and O’Brien work in tandem applying strapping, helping to loosen out players, especially those mentioned above who have driven long distances or were sitting for prolonged periods that day.
One of the physios will then be stationed pitchside to deal with any knocks or niggles which may develop during the workout under the watchful eye of Jack O’Connor and his trainers Alan O’Sullivan and Pat Flanagan.
The other will remain in the dressing room working on any player who is recovering from injury. After the session, the strapping are removed, worries assessed and again Smith and O’Brien, the first to arrive, may be the last to leave.
The relationship with the players is Smith’s favourite part of the job. Though she and O’Brien are the only two females in the male-dominated world of a Kerry squad, there is no lack of respect from the players – and management. “You get to know them very well, which is important as you need to build up a relationship with each player. Part of our job is to ask difficult questions in relation to injuries and how a player may be feeling. We in turn take that information and give an assessment to Jack (O’Connor) when it comes to selecting a team.
“The player has to be honest in return, though he knows that honesty may rule him out of playing in a big game. They have to trust you in what you tell them, and likewise it works the other way as well.”
But do you make friends? “Of course you would given the regular contact we have. What do we talk about? About the ins and outs of what is going on in life, regular banter from the weather to something you saw on television or in the paper. Trust me, you can only talk about football for so long.
“You become a bit of psychologist and confidante as well, which is only natural if a guy is suffering an acute injury and is battling on a daily basis to regain fitness. At the end of nine months I have made friends with a lot of them.”
One man Smith has seen a lot of this season is Kieran Donaghy. The 2006 footballer of the year broke a bone in his foot in the NFL final against Derry and then repeated the dose against Longford in the All-Ireland qualifiers. Running out onto the field that day in Pearse Park, Smith was expecting the worst.
“Well, yeah. It was the same foot. Even if he didn’t have an injury there, the way he fell meant that he would have been in trouble. I watched it back on Sky Plus afterwards and it was a pretty bad one.”
Recovery was difficult, not once but twice. “It is a more complicated situation. Any operation will have repercussions and this was a difficult injury. You are then working with a surgeon and following the protocol that he wants. You can only treat it as you find it.”
For Donaghy, the physical pain was one blow, the mental anguish quite another. “Any lay off for a top class sports person is hard. But Kieran found himself replicating his layoff. It is very difficult for the likes of him to sit still. But that is what they need to do if they are to recover completely.
In recent times cyrotheraphy was the big buzz word in physio circles, with players being spirited down to White’s in Wexford for a spin in the freezer. So what’s the big secret weapon in Smith’s arsenal?
“There is no one big secret weapon,” she grins. “Cyrotheraphy is very helpful in some cases but there is no major fad. It is a pretty mixed bag. I would use the standard electrotherapy and laser and then my hands for some soft tissue work.”
And ‘Dry Needling’?
“Dry Needling is where I use an acupuncture needle to release knots in muscle tissue. It is quite effective. I don’t think it is that painful – but some of the lads might disagree.”
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