Westmeath have ‘struck gold’ with coach choice

OLYMPIC canoeist Eoin Rheinisch says that Westmeath’s footballers have “struck gold” with the appointment of Brendan Hackett as manager.

Rheinisch, who finished fourth at the Beijing Games, will help with the team’s preparations, especially in the early part of the season as they build up their fitness and is looking forward to his involvement.

“I have been working with Brendan (who is a professional sports psychologist) since 2004 so when he asked me would I get involved I said I would” says Rheinisch.

“I’ll do it whenever I’m home. I can’t let it interfere with my own training too much but it will be fine unless I’m out of the country,” he adds.

The Kildare native will be doing “a little bit of everything” as he says himself, but his focus will lie primarily in physical preparation.

His own strength and conditioning coach Karl Gilligan is also part of the backroom staff. Last week the pair tested each member of the current panel and gave them individual programmes to follow.

“It’s very similar to what I do myself” Rheinisch explains. “I’m always doing tests because that way you see where you are exactly, and what improvement you’ve made on your scores, be it physical endurance or strength work.

“It was good being in the gym with the lads. Some of them would be into that sort of the stuff but a lot of them wouldn’t. I’ve been doing weights for years so I can show them a lot in that regard.

“I’ve been going 12 years as a full-time athlete so the list of stuff I’ve done is fairly cutting edge. I love the idea of passing that on to these guys free of charge, be it in terms of nutrition, training or recovery.”

He is delighted to be able to help Hackett and is looking forward to working with other sporting legends.

“They have struck gold with Brendan and the rest of the backroom staff. I mean you have Michael Carruth as the masseuse. No other team will have an Olympic gold medallist as masseuse. He is a very inspirational man as well and he’ll be talking to the players a lot. He’ll be involved in some of the conditioning work as well.”

Although his father, Donal, played football and hurling for Dublin at senior level, Rheinisch himself has very little GAA experience.

“I played at a very young age and that was it. Dad doesn’t know what happened as his four sons all ended up as canoeists.”