Liam Moffatt on the Mayo player welfare initiative

JOINT APPROACH?Mayo GAA medical director Dr SeΡn Moffatt and Mayo GAA lead physio Liam Moffatt are pictured at the announcement of the Mayo GAA Board’s Player Welfare Initiative.?Pic: Michael Donnelly

Working hand in hand


Liam Moffatt on the Mayo GAA player welfare initiative

Exclusive
Daniel Carey

THERE is no point having a player running up Croagh Patrick if all he has to do is kick a ball over the bar in Crossmolina!
So says Liam Moffatt, Mayo GAA’s lead physio, and one half of the duo overseeing the new player welfare initiative which was launched last November.
Together with his cousin, Ballina-based Dr SeΡn Moffatt, he recently addressed a gathering in Breaffy House Hotel to give the Mayo GAA faithful an update on the early months of the three-year programme.
A member of the Crossmolina Deel Rovers team who won the All-Ireland club title in 2001, Moffatt explained that the the Mayo GAA surveillance systems have been ‘integrated’ over the past three months.
What this means in practice is that each Mayo team is now ‘collecting injuries’ – making sure that each knock and problem is recorded – to give those behind the player welfare initiative ‘a starting point’ in collating information.
“This has been developed with UCD and with Croke Park, and it’s basically Mayo GAA-specific and has a particular focus on groin injuries,” Moffatt explained.
Dr SeΡn Moffatt emphasised the value of a combined strength and conditioning template so that ‘players are doing the same thing’ at all Mayo teams and ‘not coming onto something new when they jump grades’.
“If they’re at the academy when they get to minor, they [need to] have the strength in the key areas to prevent injuries and to allow them train to the loads that are required when they move to the representative teams, where winning and training volume increases,” he added.
Liam Moffatt praised the work of Mayo GAA Games Manager Billy McNicholas – “He had this brilliant idea that we’ve got to get on the one page” – and thanked Mayo strength and conditioning coach Barry Solan, former Mayo senior football team physio Martin McIntyre, and Mayo GAA Board coaching officer PΡdraic Carolan for their input into the age-appropriate strength and conditioning programme.
“What we’re working towards here … is long-term athlete development ... developing that footballer,” Liam Moffatt explained. “So the aim really is a structured and tiered approach to strength and conditioning for Mayo teams, from 14- to 21-year-olds – to promote their fitness [and] their performance, while trying to reduce their overuse injury profiles. At each level, you’ve got to hit certain markers to progress.”
Moffatt unveiled a model listing six phases in the life of a Gaelic footballer – fun for five- to nine-year-olds; ‘learning to train’ for 9-12 year-olds; ‘training to train’ for 12-16 year-olds; ‘training to compete’ for 16-18 year-olds, training to win for those aged 18+, and finally retirement and retention within the GAA.
He sketched out the appropriate training methods for each age-group.
“What we’re looking at doing this year is a standardised warm-up at under-14, focusing on how to move well, how to control your body weight, how to be stable ... [If] you’re soloing on your right foot [and] you get a belt from the left, can you stay on your feet?” he said.
Under-16 level will see the standardisation of warm-ups and the introduction of resistance training – ‘which does not mean weights,’ Moffatt emphasised.

HE explained that in the summer, the under-16 coaches will be upskilled and under-16 squads screened, and called on coaches of teenagers to be conscious of players’ growth spurts.
“If you have little Johnny on your team and he’s 5’2” today, and you look around, and by the time the second half has started he’s 6’1”, well then you need to know that his body’s going to take a while to catch up. And he will come good. But just give him a bit of a break at that time. [If] he’s picking that ball up and falling over all of a sudden, give him a helping hand.”
Next winter will see the screening of the Mayo minor squad, where the emphasis will be on movement preparation, progress in resistance training, and the monitoring of training load. Minor is, Moffatt said, ‘a very vulnerable age-group’, as players are ‘eligible for multiple teams’ – county, club, school, under-21, senior.
He praised the efforts of Mayo minor manager Enda Gilvarry and trainer James Mitchell in implementing a ‘monitoring system’ and a ‘flexibility programme’, and said those behind the player welfare initiative have been ‘working very closely’ with minor team physio David Lowther and team doctor James Harrison.
Dr SeΡn Moffatt pointed to the Sport Institute of Northern Ireland, which found that ‘really good players’ in that age-group ‘were having a lot of chronic injuries’, and suggested that players aged 15-21 have ‘no more than four’ sessions a week (training or matches), supplemented by one flexibility or weight session.
“It’s not rocket science,” Dr Moffatt added. “A lot of the injuries we’re seeing, the overuse injuries, is [because] players are probably playing too much and not getting adequate recovery; and a lot of players in that group are [still] growing, [so] their skeletal system is immature ... it’s one of the key areas we’re gonna focus on.”
Liam Moffatt added that autumn would involve a workshop at secondary-school level and the screening of the under-21 squad. ‘Programme design’ is a feature of the initiative at under-21 level, and players will, he said, be empowered to ask for aspects of their programme to be changed if it doesn’t work for them. ‘Load management’ is also important.
“No more than under-18, under-21 is vulnerable,” he concluded. “You’ve got colleges, clubs, counties all colliding at the one time, and we’ve just got to be aware of that.”
A review involving medical staff and coaches is planned for the pre-Christmas period to assess the first year of the player welfare initiative.
“The recommendations from this will hopefully form part of strategy going forward,” said Moffatt, “where the medics will learn to work hand in hand with the coaches, and vice-versa.”
County Board vice-chairman Seamus Tuohy said Mayo was ‘very lucky’ to have two men of the calibre of the Moffatts ‘driving this whole agenda forward’.
“What we want to see … is best practice in the whole area of coaching and training. We want education of our young players, and ... early ... detection of injury. We want to keep lads injury-free, educate them and do whatever interventions are required.”