Managing injuries is name of the game at this juncture

This is a special time of the season for players that are injury-free, but spare a thought for those who aren’t 100% and are battling to make the 15 on May 19, writes MICHAEL HANNON.

With just under two weeks to go before championship, our county minor and senior panels will be fine-tuning their preparations before May 19. The last week before championship will involve a lot of tapering down. The harder work will have been completed while the focus will shift towards the mental and strategic elements of the game.

However, last week and this, the penultimate week, are an interesting time in the preparation of any county panel prior to championship. We are approaching the period when players have their final opportunities to stake a claim for a place.

I’ve seen many players play themselves into contention, either for a starting role or for a supporting role off the bench, during this period of the year.
Training will predominantly revolve around playing football and as the ground begins to harden up, one or two players will begin to move better than they have been prior to this stage. As long as you are injury free, it’s a great time to be involved with a county panel. The long slog that was the winter seems to exist in another time and place. As long as you are injury free...

Let me explain. There are two types of injuries a player may be carrying. Anyone recently suffering an acute injury such as torn hamstring or a torn quad muscle, a broken bone, or in Gearoid McKiernan’s case a cruciate ligament injury, will be ruled out of participation in the championship game against Armagh. That stuff is usually clear-cut and it can be a case of bad luck and bad timing.

For that player, this is a bitter time of year. You could possibly have put in all the hard work since last November, but now find that the experience of representing your county in championship football has just been ripped out of your grasp.

There will be others, though, who are suffering from chronic injuries. Chronic injuries are usually those type of injuries where there is an onset of pain over days, weeks and months that gets progressively worse the more a player plays with it. We’re talking about injuries such as groin pain, back pain, hip pain, even hernias. Those players with chronic injuries will have been either managing them for quite some period of time, or perhaps just managing them relatively recently.

For those players, this time of the year is a tricky period of the season to navigate, because chronic injuries usually respond well to two things — rest and surgery. Neither is an option at this time of year.

Last week, for example, the senior county team would have more than likely been in the midst of the last of their heavy training. On top of that there were club games that many players would have been expected to not just play in, but to play well in. With the privilege of being a county player comes the responsibility to carry and lead their club teams to a higher level of performance on match day.

Fatigue will have been accumulating from the quantity of training and matches being played. For many players with chronic injuries, how they manage themselves over this period of time will determine their chances of playing.
I only think of this now because of my own experience of playing and training with groin pain for more successive seasons than I care to remember.

With one eye on making the championship team, not just every match and every training session but every drill, at every session would have to be navigated so as to make sure you were as pain-free as possible when the football was about to be played. Pain-free, of course, being a vague concept to anyone with a chronic injury.

It’s not an ideal scenario. Ideally you would like to be able to go hell for leather, but the rest you need is not going to be afforded to you. Best go hell for leather, then, in match situations when teams get picked. I could almost guarantee you that anywhere from five to 10 players on every current senior panel in the country would be operating within the confines of these parameters.

The team’s physiotherapist becomes your best friend. From session to session, you find yourself getting assessed and, depending on whether things have deteriorated or improved, you know how hard you should go.

I read an interview once with Brian O’Driscoll who wistfully noted that after a while you never really play at 100%. There is always some sort of injury that is affecting your body. It was a sentiment I could empathise with completely.
He noted how you are never as fit as you are at the end of pre-season. If you finish pre-season with a chronic injury, you can be sure that by the time the championship rolls round, things will have deteriorated. O’Driscoll noted that once the season starts, your body goes downhill. It was the first time I thought about it.

Up to that point, I had just assumed that once the season starts, you got fitter as you played more games. I was wrong.

Sure, you got match fitter, but being fit is about more than just how long you can run before you get tired. So if you are carrying an injury, unless you’re willing to completely pull away from a panel to fix your body, the chances are the wear and tear will build and build.

This is one of the reasons why teams in other provinces have an advantage over Ulster teams. Take either Kerry or Cork in Munster — they can effectively break their season up into two parts. Depending when they’re out in championship, they can create a window in mid-season, once the leagues have finished up, in which to undergo another mini pre-season type of training block. It’s a big advantage to them every year.

And it’s not just about getting fit; it’s about getting pain free for those players with those types of injuries.

The football being played at training will hopefully get the players up to the intensity of championship level but truthfully it can’t. In my experience, there is no replication for championship action. The speed of the game goes up a notch and the first five minutes can leave you feeling punch-drunk until you get your second wind.

Still, the strength of your panel will determine how close your in -ouse matches are to the real thing. Throw in one or two challenge matches and that will be it for most of the players. They’ll either have done enough to force their way into the managements plans or they’ll find themselves watching from the sidelines.

This time of year is meant to be enjoyable. The intensity of training should be enjoyed. The competition should be enjoyed. The challenge of it all should be enjoyed. So even if you are carrying a knock, put it to the back of your mind and rise to the challenge. If things are going well in the camp, there will be a buzz building with every gathering of the panel. I guess it’s that little thing called hope.

Throw in a bit of belief and the possibilities begin to crystalise in front of you. Why not Cavan? Why not 2013?

And then the waiting game begins...