Trevor Giles calls for 'GAA 15' warm up to be implemented more as Meath great laments cruciate curse
Former Meath footballer Trevor Giles poses for a portrait at Croke Park ahead of the deadline for the 2026 Beko Club Champion application. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Meath great Trevor Giles, a chartered physiotherapist, has lamented the curse of the cruciate which has struck the county and offered an opinion on why the injury is on the rise.
The Royal County will return to Division 1 activity in 2027 but look set to start the year without Conor Gray, Seán Coffey, Ruairí Kinsella and Jack Kinlough, all of whom are recovering from ACL injuries.
Kerry have suffered similarly in recent seasons with senior panellist Thomas O'Donnell of Castlegregory the latest to encounter the dreaded injury following lengthy layoffs for Seán O'Brien, Barry Dan O'Sullivan and Damien Bourke.
Cork hurler Ciarán Joyce is another ACL casualty, along with inter-county footballers Killian McGinnis (Dublin), Jonathan Lynam (Westmeath) and Bobby McCaul (Monaghan).
It's an even greater problem in the ladies game with twice Footballer of the Year Giles, who runs his practice at Tara in Meath, noting that the female anatomy leaves them 'a little bit more at risk unfortunately'.
Stud selection and pitch surfaces are consistently trotted out as potential contributory factors to ACL injuries though Giles had his own unique take.
"I can't give you one reason for it, what I would say is, FIFA have this warm up, the FIFA 11, and the GAA has the GAA 15," said Giles, at a Beko Club Champion event.
"The GAA Medical Committee, which would be doctors and chartered physiotherapists, would have come up with this. It's a warm up designed to prevent injuries, but with a particular emphasis on ACL injuries. I'd say there's hardly a team in the country doing it.
"To be fair, it's a little bit long. It takes a bit of time to do it. I remember showing it to our club, just got all the coaches together, said it's a warm up, and it was kind of a case where you'd have to do that and then do the ball work warm up as well. Just not sure it's practical, but there's stuff in there that would prevent injuries."
Giles expressed confidence that if the GAA 15 warm up was more widely implemented, the incidence of ACL injuries would drop.
"That's not being implemented," he said of the dynamic warm up, which lasts between 15 and 20 minutes. "And I can understand coaches just want to get into a proper warm up and get the session going as quick as they can.
"There are exercises you do when you're recovering from your ACL injury, a lot of it working on the lateral aspect of the hip and control of the knee and jumping and landing. And, of course, you don't do that when you're not injured.
"It's hard to get fellas that have never been injured before to do some of this prevention stuff because they think, 'Well, sure I never get injured, I don't need to do that stuff'. In the Premier League, places like that, you're fully professional, you can do more of that stuff then in our world. That would be sort of my tuppence worth, that if you had more time and really went after this, you would cut down on some of these injuries."
Giles also advised that football boots should only be bought after a specialist fitting, and not simply from online outlets.
"For such an important thing, I think players should put a bit more thought into what boot they wear," said the 1996 and 1999 All-Ireland winner.
"From working as a physio, everyone has different feet. And what you buy should fit you and should support you. It's like the foundation of a house, if you're building your house, you want to get your foundations right, and then the house should stand stable. Your feet are the foundations of your body. I'm not saying that's causing ACL injuries, it's just injuries in general."
On footballer matters, Giles predicted that 14 different counties could potentially win the All-Ireland football title in 2027.
"It's an outrageous number," he acknowledged. "If you are a player, you're thinking, 'If we get a bit of momentum going, if we get a run, if we have no key injuries'...I think 14 teams are thinking, 'Yeah, that could be us'."
Regarding the latest suite of rules which will be trialled in the upcoming third level league competitions, Giles said he doesn't favour any change.
"I wouldn't change a thing," said Giles, who also revealed that he will step down as Meath minor manager as his son, Oisín, may be involved with the 2027 panel.
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