Still lots to learn from field of athletics

When Michael Cusack founded the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884 he had two main aims: to re-establish hurling as the national game and to promote athletics throughout the country.

Athletics was the main focus in the formative years but Gaelic football was to sweep the nation and resulted in athletics moving away from the association — now a single body in the form of Athletics Ireland in the present day.

While athletics is no longer part of the GAA, the sport’s influence on football and hurling, and indeed the rest of the sports throughout the country and abroad, is impressive in the form of therapists and fitness trainers.

Last year’s All-Ireland SHC final classics between Cork and Clare which saw markedly improved fitness levels was masterminded by David Matthews and Joe O’Connor, respectively. Matthews is a two-time Olympian and still holds the Irish record for the 800m with 1:44.82 and has been working with Cork for the last number of years.

Joe O’Connor, a member of An Riocht athletic club in Castleisland, was a former regional development officer for Athletics Ireland and his fitness expertise has paid dividends for Clare.

One of Ireland’s leading sprints coaches, John Coghlan feels it is natural for the GAA to be tapping into the expertise of athletics.

“It’s the most advanced sport [athletics] out there in terms of maximising speed, jumping ability, power, stamina and endurance,” said Coghlan, who has worked with a number of Meath and Dublin football and hurling teams at different levels and has held individual training sessions with inter-county stars such as Ciarán Kilkenny.

The Dubliner has coached Ireland’s fastest men Paul Hession and Steven Colvert and currently coaches leading 400m runner Brian Gregan alongside his fitness consultancy role.

He believes that comparing athletics and GAA is like comparing “apples and oranges” but feels “there are GAA lads who would train like an international athlete if given the opportunity”.

The sprinting guru sees a much bigger physical demand to be successful in athletics while GAA is more skill-based. He thinks the GAA teams and players can still get more out of themselves physically.

“There are some fast GAA players out there like Jack McCaffrey but most wouldn’t even make it out of the heats of the 100m in the national championships,” said Coghlan, who considers Meath’s Eamonn Wallace as the fastest player in the country — he runs for Ratoath and has good national standard personal bests of 22 seconds for 200m and 48 seconds for 400m.

“Mind you there aren’t many athletes who could solo the ball down the field as fast as McCaffrey,” countered Coghlan on the concept of speed.

Coghlan is still keen to stress the developments of the GAA on the performance side though, and believes the man who has opened them up to this is world-renowned physical therapist Gerard Hartmann.

“There’s no doubt that Gerard Hartmann has paved the way,” said Coghlan of the Limerick therapist who has treated the best athletes across a spectrum of sports, from Henry Shefflin to Paula Radcliffe.

Hartmann has treated numerous Olympic and world medal winners along with multiple world record holders and has revolutionised prehabilitation and rehabilitation in this country and beyond.

Ireland rugby legend Keith Wood endorsed Hartmann’s autobiography Born to Perform with these words: “Rugby was professional, but my body was not! Gerard Hartmann’s hands were needed to bridge that gap.”

It’s the bridging of this gap that has opened the door for Irish therapists, who were also top athletes — such as Vinny Mulvey, David Campbell and Ciaran McDonagh to work with the best athletes in the world.

Mulvey, a former international cross country runner, is currently a resident therapist with Leinster Rugby while McDonagh, Irish long jump record holder (8.07m), is employed full-time by america’s decathlon world record holder Ashton Eaton. Meanwhile former international 800m runner David Campbell is over treating the star names of track and field at the Manchester City Games this weekend.

“The whole area has moved on so much,” said Hartmann on physiotherapy and physical therapy. “When you break it down to it’s simplest format it’s like a hairdresser giving a haircut. Instead of snip, snip, snip on the hair, it’s rub, rub, rub and stretch, stretch, stretch to try and get the body right.”

It’s in this simple format that athletics guides and directs the developments of other sports, from therapy to periodisation of training, plyometrics and drills to the basic ABCs — agility, balance and co-ordination. And while Michael Cusack’s vision of developing athletics within the association has vanished, the association hasn’t forgotten the sport and the merits of it to help them excel.

It’s why any progressive GAA county or club team employ the likes of John Coghlan to give them that edge come championship season.