Exploring the Challenges of High Performance with AFL's Nick Walsh

Welcome to the Mike Quirk Podcast. Now give me my theme music!

Hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast where we're going to try and scratch a little bit below the surface of coaching again and see if we can find a couple of ways that we can do it better. I'm delighted to say in the last couple of weeks we've had a huge response to the episodes, particularly around Dr. Kira Losty and Dr. Ed Collin.

I suppose looking at the areas of sports psychology and skill acquisition, really focused on the youth sports side of things and how we can provide a really, really good environment for our players to develop skillfully and to stay motivated and enjoy the game. So if you haven't listened to those already, I'd encourage you to go back and have a listen because there's some really, really good stuff in there for everybody that's involved in youth coaching.

Today is probably slightly different and we've moved up the ladder a little bit, which is great.

And I'm delighted to say that I'm joined by Nick Walsh. Nick would be known to people nationally really in Ireland but certainly in the Cavan area he would have played Gaelic football with Cavan before signing a contract in Australian Rules Football and going over there and trying out that for a number of years injury probably stopped that short he came home and eventually went back out there to fulfil different roles coaching and working with their coaches association

and more recently I suppose as the head of high performance with St Kilda Football Club he's now moved on again to. More sports technology stuff. And we talk about that a little bit at the end, but there's loads of loads of really good stuff here for coaching, probably a little bit more towards that high performance adult side of things.

But still, no matter what level or what sports you're involved in, you'll get something from somebody who's as experienced in different professional environments as Nick has. And so I think there is, there's something there for everybody, definitely.

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Okay, brilliant. Nick, thanks a million for taking the time to talk to us. How are things? Good, yeah. No, thanks for having me on. Yeah, brilliant. What time of the day is it over there now, actually? We're early morning in Ireland, so it's late, obviously, for you. It's half eight or so at nighttime, so yeah, it's not too bad. Not too bad. I'm sitting here as the rain is pounding at the window, and you're obviously in sunnier climes than we are at the moment.

There's actually been 36 here today and then it dropped to 22, a cool 22, you know. 22 would be a heatwave, obviously, yeah. Maybe just on that for people, would you give us a kind of a brief overview of where you are now, how you got to Australia, your story, you're getting picked up, you're playing, obviously, and a little bit just the context so people have an idea. Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm 41 now, Mike, we're getting on.

I came to Australia first when I was 17. You know, I was fortunate to be recruited by Melbourne Football Club. I hadn't completed my school. I completed my school in St. Kevin's, year 12 here, the same school that Anthony Toll went to. There was a link between the club and did my year 12, the leaving sort of equivalent there. Then I was on Melbourne's books for that year and two more years after that.

And, you know, to cut a long story short, injuries ruined me, overtraining, all the stuff that I wasn't supposed to be doing that I'm trying to instill now into, you know, young men. to be the best it can be, essentially, you know, I learned from those mistakes. So I returned back to Ireland in 04, went to Jordanstown and Belfast, studied sports coaching.

And then I had a bit of a budding career with Ulster Council and Cabin GEA through probably 05 to about 2011, you know, and that's where we sort of crossed paths, I guess, in the.

And and whatnot and then look at i always had not in my mind look at an opportunity came up i guess through just connections and professional development and during that time when i was working back in the ga and setting up the squads in calvin and all that sort of stuff i'd but always my eye on you know what australia was doing and our best practice and human performance and i went down the road of what many people would have done in ireland now it's satanta college

and ended up doing my master's there which has been terrific you know under the tutorage of you know des ryan at the time he's been on your show and stuff like that so i'd be close to a few few guys like that back home as well opportunity came up here 2011 i was working at crow park at the time as as national manager for participation under pat daly i was only i was only sort of there less than a year and this opportunity come up and i was really enjoying my

time in crow park to be honest and i saw sort of a pathway in that and but the old professional rankings came and the high performance and and sort of that space that i wanted to be in around you know high performance development strength and conditioning rehab that sort of end of things so look i took the opportunity i said to mom and dad at the time i was 28 then i said look and i'm going to go back to australia just for a couple of years i said i'd probably be back

you know at a place in cavern at the time I'm sure I'm still here and I've had, you know. 14, 15 odd years now with two clubs. I've worked for the organization AFL. I've been a head of performance. I've worked for the AFL Coaches Association in sort of the mental health space as well, which has been great. Sort of mental health slash coach education, which we might touch upon.

And I'm working now for a company called Teamworks, who's a sports technology company worldwide, which has been a terrific transition for me out of the professional game into a game that I've never sort of would seen myself in. But I've used the technology for probably, you know, the last sort of 10 years of my career work. And I still do a little bit of coaching on the side as well, you know, to keep my eye in.

That's a lot packed into, not a huge amount of years. That's a lot of experience and exposure to different things. Look, it's been amazing. Met some really, really good people along the way, some really good mentors, some really good players, some really good coaches. You know, sport brings you on this journey, Mike, as you know, like it brings you on this amazing journey. You meet some really, really good, good people along that journey.

And fortunate, you know, I've had, you know, just less than half my life now in Australia. and like globally through, you know, one of my best mates, you know, Andy King, who's working in Doha. And we would have played midfield together for Cavan Gales for years eight and nine. And, you know, he's doing great things in sports. And, you know, there's others out there as well. A good friend of mine from Derry, Chris Collins, who's got the new job as head of Europe at the GA.

So it's great to see people doing well. Like, I really like that. So, you know, when people come over here and, you know, to reach out, I love catching up for a coffee and whatnot.

Not and you know obviously i can't provide him a job i love if i can but i'd love to give him you know a bit of guidance and direction and whatnot where i can yeah it's an incredible vehicle for for just lifelong connections and i know i know we always say it about the ga but it it is sport in general just gives you that attachment to people that you know you can call on them in 10 years time or 15 years time and grab a coffee and find

out what they're doing and take an interest in what they're doing which is just as you know as interesting as what you're doing yourself it's great yeah I'm in language like you know it's like I've been you know my.

Life as I mentioned you know I've been in the GEA circles since I was you know four or five like us all and then the AFL circles on and off and and there being my sports you know Berlin as well a bit you know through my dad back in the Wexford times too so like Gaelic, GEA, AFL have been my sports and now I'm I'm finding myself working in this sports technology space I go over to India next week to work with some of the cricket teams, the IPL teams.

I'm working with Australian fencing, badminting in Malaysia. You know, places like this that, like, I don't know these sports, but it's the concepts and processes and coaches and communications and language that we learn and we need no matter what sport it is. Yeah, interesting. Maybe just to get back to the start of it, so a little bit, just in terms of that transition and your move from, you know, G.A.

Gillick Games and then as a 17-year-old to come into that AFL world, which is I know it's a good while back now but just in terms of that transition from one sport to the other what were some of the struggles or some of the things that you found easy just transitioning over from one game to the other. Yeah, no, that's, it's a good, good point. Like people ask me this sort of stuff all the time.

And, you know, when, when you're a 17, 18, 19 year old, like, like that, you don't often, well, I didn't at the time, you know, we're thinking, or I wouldn't imagine likes a tiger, those guys that come over, you know, thought of it much, but looking at it now, it's like, Jesus, it was such a big move.

And, you know, when I see young, young Irish kids come over now, you know, I'm always a, I always reach out to them just, you know, just in case or reach out to their parents just in case, because I see now how hard it would have been. But in terms of the transition at the time, AFL, like 20 years ago was sort of transitioning into a really, really professional environment, you know, really professional training loads weren't a thing that they are now.

And the GA is advancing this massively as well. It was sort of at a time where we were doing too much. And as a young Irish boy coming over, I was expected to do what the 25, 26, 27-year-old started. And I was the competitive one and I wanted to do that. And forward science wasn't there where it is now. You weren't wearing GPS. You weren't doing wellness questionnaires. There was no one checking in on your mental health.

All this sort of stuff. you're either good enough or not you're either hard or soft all that sort of stuff that you had and essentially for me i over trained mike because i wanted to be the best i wanted to leave my legacy i wanted to do more kicking i wanted to be more running and look for a period of time i i was flying you know in second year in i was very very close to playing senior football and then someone, not someone but it felt like someone pulled the rug out and me my whole body

collapsed so it's like, you know, I explain it to people, Mike, it's. You know, you build a house and if you don't have a solid foundation and my, my foundation wasn't solid because, you know, unfortunately back then in cabin, we, we, we didn't have S and C programs. We didn't have course stability programs. You know, it wasn't a thing, you know, when we were, we were growing up, I guess I was fortunate to work in a bar in cabin, you know, when I was young collecting glasses, doing, you know.

Kegs on a Monday and that gave me my strength, you know, and I was reasonably big 16, 17 year old, but it didn't give me a lot of money.

Me the functional strength that I needed and and my house fell down my body broke down and and when I went back to Ireland in 04 I was really curious as to the why and and hence why I I turned my attention to to study in that area because I wanted to go down to the construction route to be honest for a while okay but I got really interested in in in the body movement biomechanics with really good people in the Ulster Council Eugene Young Tony Scullion Terence McWilliams you know wealth of

knowledge Arthur Keenan's up there they're all still there this wealth of knowledge Eugene ended up being and I didn't really know Eugene at the time but he ended up being a tutor of mine at Jordanstown and then you know the synergies happened through sports coaching and started bringing me on that coaching journey of you know wondering why and where my body went and all that sort of stuff so yeah so that's one

of the reasons you know I went sort of down that route but you know to circle back in your question. The big differences between Ireland and Australia then was the real professional game. It's different than it is now because there's so much monitoring goes on now. Young lad coming into the game, and I'm sure, I know you had Tommy on a few weeks ago, and he would talk to it more broadly around first-year players now only do 70%, 80% of training. Right.

I was trying to do 120% and the coaches were facilitating that, you know, and there was an overreaching factor and all that sort of stuff. But maybe I wouldn't have made it anyway. It mightn't have been good enough, but all that sort of thing. So you're left. Yeah, look, I went back to Calvin then in 04. My body was a bit of a mess.

I had a groin surgery at the end of 03.

I was about six, seven weeks off. I had a conversation with Eamon Coleman, Lord of Mercy, on my time, who was Calvin manager, living in Gowning, Calvin and he just said look come back and we look after you and we get you going again and, he was great him and Marty McElkennen from Tyrone he was he was he was coaching at the time and that was the first time and not the first time but it was newish in the GA concept where there was a manager and a coach right okay and and Marty

was sort of coming from this PE background, where he brought in it was circuit train at the time which I'm sure you you would have done down and Kerry but there was this S&C sort of component of it and that was sort of the the new thing at the time so you know through the cabin we're you know we weren't that successful but we were better than what we had been after sort of that 798 sort of tenure that they had when they played Kerry in

the Old Ireland sort of semi-final and I guess at the time then. What the direction I wanted to go, Mike, was to, you know, I was lucky to fall into a position with Cavan County Board. There was a time when the GA was revamping, you know, football development managers and whatnot. And I guess the angle that I wanted to bring was, yes, the coaching, number one. And because there was good coaching structures, good passion in Cavan. But I also wanted to bring that academy development squad now,

set up a really good structure. Like, you know, there's a group. Martin Cahill was the coaching officer at the time. Phil Smith former chairman was there Tom Riley, Liam McCabe there was great support from Cavan G older people that had been there in years but they were open to change, I sort of brought in that change sort of philosophy with a number of people including Tony Brady up there and we instilled these development squads with a broad base and Cavan went on probably in the early.

2011 12, 13 I think to win three in a row, Ulsters, and they might have been beaten in one, but to set themselves up for success. And then when my club mate, Mickey Graham, went on a couple of years ago during COVID, win the Ulster Championship, you know, I'll reflect back on that. And there was something like, off the top of my head, 20, the 30-man panel, or there was two-thirds of the panel that had come through that pathway, which is nice to think. Yeah, absolutely.

And just as you were talking there about it, That period of you coming back after having the tough time with injuries over and before you got back into that role, I'm only just thinking now of young lads that are GA guys that are going over, that maybe struggle.

Obviously, the physical monitoring would be much better now than it was then, but for whatever reason, maybe they don't make it and they come home. It is a really tough mentally and everything else it's a tough transition to go over and to try it and maybe to be perceived as okay I failed in that and I have to come home and. There's probably nothing there from the GAA or the AFL to kind of help these fellas reintegrate back into normalcy, I suppose.

No, no, you're 100% right. And, you know, that was part of my role here at the time. I was working with the AFL Coaches Association at the time. We shared an office with the AFL Players Association. So we're different organizations, but sort of connected.

Okay. out and it was at a time when you know lord of mercy on him young red oak was over here and he reached out to me and he just said to me you know nick i'm not enjoying it you know i don't lock the game i said cool that's fine let's let's meet up and we caught up for a coffee and and you know had a chat and the game wasn't for him you know he wasn't enjoying the experience and you know whatever was going on eternally in the clubs and the promises that

he may be made and all that sort of stuff you know.

We opted to move home but you know to your point that transition program you know what does that look like you know from a gpa flpa point of view and and i know here and shane was working in both and he's been trying to do some stuff there uh in between and you know great great guy and all that sort of stuff but there's there's there's no sort of formal approach to my knowledge in give you a couple of little examples around that time especially around covid you know when when marquine and

uh young anton towell and yeah callum and from from from dairy they were all new out here okay and there was no reserve competition because of covid right um and there was no development and i spoke to the lads and i said what are you doing he said we're not playing games we can't train in groups we have to do we we want to go home like okay cool you know have the conversation with your club and you know see and you know all that sort of thing so the penny sort of dropped for me there to begin

some conversations with the AFL number one so you know I touched touch base with the head of football there at the time who's now chief of command Andrew Dillon we spoke to the networks we spoke to the the player agents or managers we spoke to the AFL PA and I also spoke to the GPA in in regards to this because I think you know you look at a thing no matter if you're from Cavan or Kerry or Cork or wherever you're from the AFL as an organization okay.

Holds the clubs there's 18 clubs here a club goes over to Kerry.

Identifies or scouts a player brings them over okay the the player either makes it or doesn't make it he he will come back or she yeah it will come back and there is that sense of shit i didn't really make it i'm not good enough so you're going from this you know probably one of your best let's talk carry here one of your best carry minors probably to over here to probably your worst listed player you know for a period of time until they can prove themselves and then

let's say they don't make and then to go back and i think the expectation on that young kid is that he will become the best kid in carry again yeah okay but the lull in one or two or three years where he's playing a different game he's maturing at different rates he's a different body type you know his skill factor has probably gone down from kicking a round ball to an afl ball and all that goes along with that you know it's it's hard to quantify um so when speaking the

afl and the ga i said who's responsible and i got a lot of you know your response i said no i actually think everyone's responsible because the ga bring this guy up okay they coach him cool it's not ideal that he leaves and goes to the afl but it happens and there's no barriers to stop that like soccer and badminton and rugby and whatever sports that might come along and take a player. Cool, we probably can't stop that. So, there's responsibility on the GA.

Responsibility on the AFL, responsibility on the club, that's doing all the club development stuff here. There's responsibility on the player agent, that's doing it. And there's also responsibility back, if that player goes back, between the AFL Players Association and the GPA.

That's my view. You know? So, So, you know, if, if, and I know there's been talks around should be compensation for the kid and all this sort of stuff, you know, I actually think that investment, whatever that looks like, should go into some sort of transition pool of money. So, and I'll give you a really quick example.

There's there's a young kid coming over he's going to be listed to st kilda football club as as as you probably heard young young guy from me amon armstrong yeah i reached out to amon and just checked in because i was at st kilda for a few years know a few of the guys there now still and we were chatting and he's a he's including guy an intelligent young man and he wants to study and I sort of said to myself you know wouldn't it be great if he could study in DCU as an example and still play

over here so surely this day and age there's stuff that he could do by correspondence. And still play over here and that's where I think the GPA and the AFLPA and these clubs can get together and scholarship and fund and do all this for the players tradition because, Uh, look quick sums, something like 65 men have come over and played the game. And I reckon five had made it, you know, I satanta a bit, Sean white back in the day, Jim Steins back in the day, Zach to, you know.

Couple of bags, you know, there's a few more, but there's a solid five on a hand of around 65 players. Yeah. So that's a lot of guys then that are obviously coming back and they're saying, OK, I got to pick up from here. Now, it's just interesting. I had a good chat with Tommy, obviously, and Tommy would be an ultra solid kind of a character. And the point that Tommy was making around that whole compensation thing without

going down a rabbit hole is that, well, you know what? It'll force the GA to up what the GA is offering players, not in terms of cash or anything like that. In terms of the conditions that players have to experience now in GA, they'll have to become better because you have to not compete because you can never compete with 36 degrees and 22 in the shade and everything else that comes with the trappings of professional life.

But you have to try and maximize what you have and at least offer some kind of a viable alternative. And I just think that bit then where fellas do have to come back or choose to come back, as you make the point, well, then that should be somebody's responsibility. And I know you're saying it probably falls in a myriad of different people, but there should be something there for people.

Because I would imagine that has to be a bit of a struggle for guys to get back and acclimate to life back here as a non-professional again, you know? 100%. And I think the GPA and the AFLPA, they've had talks on this, you know, in relation to transition. because when you come into the game here in the AFL, you get transitioned in and they do that really well, no matter if you're an Irish player or number one pick here.

But there should be a transition out as well, you know, because there's certain things here that I speak to the Irish players about. As an example, you know, there's a tax fund here, a superannuation fund that you pay. It's like a pension fund, basically. But if an Irish player plays here for a number of years, they're actually entitled to that money at a tax rate to bring home, you know, just stuff like that.

And we had this issue, you know, with one of the players where they wanted to do a degree in engineering here, which is cool. We wanted him to do that, but he was on the wrong type of visa and he was paying international student fees that was costing three times the amount of an Aussie. So let's say it was 15 grand to do the course here. It was ended up costing him 45 grand.

Right. So this is the sort of stuff that, you know, as good as it is coming over here and all that sort of stuff, there has to be things put in place. And we are getting better now at this, I have to say. Putting things in place around correct visas, you know, paying the correct tax brackets, you know, all that sort of stuff that, you know, young 17, 18, 19 year old fellas wouldn't think of, you know.

No, no, no. Or maybe parents. No, probably, yeah. Maybe not. Maybe not. Just moving on a little bit there in terms of, we mentioned already, you were stuck with the AFL Coaches Association and this idea of the tackle your feelings.

I was just reading up a little bit on that yesterday and maybe just talk about it a little bit in terms of, we're very conscious of, particularly over here now, about mental health for players and the demands on players and social media and everything that's bombarding them. But I was just interested to see in terms of the coaching side of it was this kind of encapsulating some of the coaches as well that people had an opportunity to reach out if that was there?

Right, yeah, so basically like a lot of these mental health programs unfortunately they occur on the back of tragic circumstances and we had a coach here, Phil Walsh, who was a coach of the Adelaide Crows down in Adelaide, one of the top 18 teams in 2015 his son came home and murdered him like it was big big news here you know drug fueled alcohol mental health all that sort of stuff, At that time, the Coaches Association happened to be sponsored by Zurich Insurance.

And what they unearthed at the time was that a part of their sponsorship was that they insured all the coaches in the AFL for a life insurance policy. So with this tragic circumstance, they said, look, we've got this foundation back in Switzerland called the Zed Foundation.

And what they do is take a lion's share of profits from xeric's business all around the world and they put it back into programs for with different pillars like mental health flood resilience was one and homelessness was the other and to go around the world and give grants and all that sort of stuff so i wasn't working with them at the time they they applied for a grant they got the grant got a five-year grant to run this mental health program that was targeting afl coaches

okay and we were going to start with the professional body so then from my experience of working sort of in that sort of coaching sector applied for the job got the job which is great and it sort of got me back into you know coach education with with a mental health lens and what we did from scratch was we we built the program with a group of psychologists and.

There's only there's only there's 18 professional teams here let's say with you know one head coach and two or three other coaches that I'd be working in. So when you do the maths on 18 multiply by four, it's not that many, you know? Yeah. But what we then unearthed was that there's, what was it? Something like, and I'll probably get this wrong, but something like 3,000 and something community clubs all around Australia. So similar to the GA club back home. Okay.

There's 3,000 odd clubs all around Australia from, you know, junior club, Mid-tier club, senior club, amateur, semi-professional, whatnot, just not in the elite standard. So what we sort of designed a program, Mike, to give coaches the tools to have conversations with the players. Because when we did our research around it, what we saw was that a minimum, you have two sessions a week.

And with that session, you then also have a game. So you're probably spending, you know, on average, you know, in season somewhere around six to eight hours a week with a player. All right. And the statistics in Australia at the time was that I think it was something like two-thirds of the population from the age of 17 to 25 or 28 were struggling with a mental health issue that needed an intervention. So they need to see a psychologist.

And they couldn't get psychologists because there wasn't enough. And the wait list to see a psychologist was absolutely crazy.

I'm talking months. right so what we tried to do was empower the coaches to give them the tools not to be a psychologist right but but to be be therapeutic in their approach okay so if if if i for example and let's say you're a player and i'm a coach and if i noticed that mike perk was a little bit off today that i'd have the confidence to have the conversation with you and ask appropriate questions okay you know and and what we we found and we put some research around this

with with Monash University here was that most of the time that conversation is an intervention. And what does that mean is that it solves the problem through normalizing experience. Okay. Cause I've got age on you, let's say I've got more life experience than you.

And most of the problems that we're seeing at that level are surface-based problems, like maybe a relationship breakup or a financial trouble or, you know, not enough work or, you know, something like that, that could lead to something else.

Okay. now there was there was a few instances where we had to triage that service and it needed an intervention so what we did with the program was that we had psychologists deliver the program out to clubs locally so you know i'd go to my club cavan gales and it would be me as a facilitator but you know john smith has this psychologist and what we do then is create the connection between the psychologists in the club if

they need an intervention and that's worked really really well here really really well and that program is now going since 2018 I stood away from it to go back into a role as head of performance with St Kilda in 2021-22.

And it's flourishing after getting seven more years I think just recently so that'll be a 10-15 year plus program which is you know I'm really proud of Yeah that's really interesting it's something it's a model certainly that would you would imagine could work over here who have similar issues and similar structures in terms of the clubs and the coaches and players and stuff and just to empower coaches to like you said to have a little bit more confidence and yeah like

you're not you're not a psychiatrist or a psychologist but you're just comfortable enough to ask the questions that maybe get somebody to talk and open up a little bit yeah that's very interesting man yeah just to move on to that high performance role You started with Kilda in 21 or somewhere around there. What is, for you, what is high performance or how do you get to high performance in that role?

Yeah, no, that's a good question. And I think, look, high performance to me is the ability to have really good relationships with your players, number one. The ability to facilitate a program for the head coach, depending on what type of game they want to play. And the ability to keep your players on the pitch. Like that's, they're the sort of three sort of key things for me. I'm a big relationships person. I need to have good rapport with my players.

My players need to trust me, you know, in what we're doing.

Not only that trust me but trust the program and the staff that would be under me like a strength conditioning coach nutritionist you know all that sort of stuff so basically my role as a head of performance you know i didn't have to see myself as a specialist in everything okay but a generalist with enough knowledge to empower the specialist be able to go and do the role really really well so my vision was to go and get a really good strength and conditioning coach

which, which we did, you know, we had a really good budding nutritionist and, and she's become a star, you know, and she's still working at the club, really good rehab specialist, which I lost after my first year, cause he got an opportunity for another club, which is really cool, but you know, it's not, not great, but that's, that's the business of it. Yeah. Um, you know, working with really good phys, physios, doctors, et cetera.

So ensuring that those, all those pieces of the puzzle are coming together that we're communicating effectively and that we're we're all on the one page because as you know if we're not players will see see through you really really quickly um the second part of that is is the relationship with the coach so if i meet a coach for the first time i always ask what's your game plan what way do you want to play map it out for me because what I'll then do is go away and draw up the

demands of how that coach wants to play. Not the. I'll, I'll instill a fitness regime and then you build your game plan around me, you know, just, it doesn't work like that. Yeah. So I see that the high performance professional or the strength and conditioning coach or whatever role you're in, you should be there facilitating the team manager.

That that's essentially what that, that person should be. And I think we've got a little bit lost in that over the journey because I seen the S&C person is calling a lot of shots.

The S&C person shouldn't be calling the shots should be facilitating the shots and rolling out his ideas or her ideas or whatever it might be and if you get the tick of approval from the coach after justifying it whether it's a bit research or numbers or whatever it might be then cool go for your life you know because I guess my role at St Kilda I had two coaches when I was there in my two years.

The first coach played a bit of a kamikaze style game just real quick up and back you know we we fly and fit but like we had to be flying fit so and we not only had to be flying fit we we had to he gave me an allowance to monitor the players a bit more and be more conservative in training which is cool for me because i can keep more players on the park and then at the end of the year we've less injuries and all that sort of stuff and he didn't like the bashing

crash and train and he didn't like the you know he liked small-sided games and games base, he likes that, but he didn't like the going at that 100%. You know, if it's tackling, double-handed touch, and you look after your mate, and, you know, when we go and play on Saturday, you can do the bash and crash stuff. Okay. You know, where then the new coach wanted to play a bit more conservative, slower-type game, but still wanted to have good running numbers through our

midfield. So it was a slightly different philosophy. Okay. You know, it was really good learning for me in terms of, you know, of how I structure my program. Year one, when I was at the helm, we could go Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, so I'd get an extra running session in pre-season, which is great from a running load point of view, where the new coach wanted to go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with a weekend off, which has got benefits for players as well.

It's a point you can't consecutively load players on leg, so it's a bit shit. You know, do I go four days on legs or five day on legs? I'm getting a bit risky here with injury. So it's a bit of a balance in that as well. Yeah. So it's got multiple elements, high performance for me, but definitely boils down to relationships with players, coaches, and being that facilitator around how the game needs to be played for the club.

Yeah. I think that's a really good, the generalist who empowers the specialist This is probably a really, really nice way of capturing that kind of a role, obviously. Just on that, when you mentioned the bash and crash there, and I'm just thinking from a rugby perspective now, where obviously they've tried to, and NFL, where they've now minimized the kind of, let's call it the bash and crash during midweek and trying to protect guys in terms of concussion and different things.

Has that become a part of the AFL stuff yet? Or is there specific kind of regulations around how much you can actually do full contact during the week? Or is that still kind of up to the clubs? In pre-season, it just crept in last year. So there was guidelines around how much contact you could have. Like, as I mean, you know, physical contact with the players.

Rolling back the clock a little bit, five, six, seven years ago, the afl outlawed sparring boxing as part of training all right because of the the head knocks, the you could do pad pad work and whatnot because we used we used boxing here and bike and you know other forms of of training as cross training to top up your fitness you know which is yeah a real good metric to get a an anaerobic anaerobic hit or whatever you're working on.

So they outlawed that and like early days when I was at the Giants 2012, 13, 14 there were young kids up there we actually did 6-7 weeks of boxing properly with a fight after it and it was great for the boys it was great, now we did it in a safe manner and we refereed and touched wood we didn't get any injuries and a few bloody noses and what not but nothing severe but I can see the reasoning from the AFL you know these lads playing.

23 home-and-away games on a year, plus finals and practice games. You're probably talking minimum 28, 30 games a year where it's full-on. You know, Dection, as you know, like Gaelic, and it's full-on. There's a defined tackle. So they've cleaned the game up a lot, you know, from a game point of view with the sling tackle and, you know, all that sort of stuff is being cleaned up.

So I think the next layer is is cleaning up training from from a small-sided games contact point of view and and you know through the years there was a lot of in the program there would be like in an afternoon rotation in pre-season there would be tackle tech so they've outlawed that sort of in it because you know it's just it's too much you know there's technique and there's there's I'm gonna go at you a hundred percent and you know we're not playing games

for bloody 10 weeks so what's the point type thing yeah so there's there's pros and cons for that around body hardness and doing it in a safe manner and getting the right technique and stuff but versus the the you know the stupidity of having to put your head over it and and get absolutely you know knocked out or concussed or whatnot yeah look there is laws coming in more strict i tell you what what laws have have come

in here more community level is the 21 day rule so if you You get a head knock in community football here and the medical professional that's working with you deems that you're concussed. It's a blanket 21 days, you're out. So you cannot return for 21 days. And look, as a coach, it can be frustrating because I lose my best player, 19 years of age for 21 days.

But on the flip side of that, I can see it from the AFL standpoint because there was talks about, oh, they have to get a doctor's clearance and all that. But if you've got three and a half thousand clubs playing football here every weekend, multiply that by, you know, 20 kids at a time, multiple teams, there's not enough doctors to give out certs. So there has to be a little bit of give and take on that.

So, yeah, look, to circle back on your original point, there's a lot being done here in regards to contact concussion protocol, all that sort of stuff.

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It's the ideal platform for clubs to share ideas, sessions, or build a library of resources for your club. You can find out more at www.gamesensecoaching.com or on Twitter at GAAsense. Use the code GAMESENSE23 to get 20% off all packages. And the role with Kilda in terms of the high-performance stuff, is that something, is that like you obviously really enjoy that kind of a role in working hands-on with the coaches and the players?

Yeah, yeah. It's a great role. Like, it's a role I sort of, I was at the Giants for eight years up in Sydney, and I had three high-performance managers that I worked under. I sort of was in mainly the rehab space, return-to-play space, football development, which was a crossover. And I always saw myself as having the ability to run a program. With it, there's a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure. A lot of phone calls, coaches are demanding, all that sort of stuff.

But it's good. Yeah. Look, it's, it was a great role. And when I had it, a lot of travel involved, which is cool. You know, like I always, people always say to me, I love to work in AFL and all that sort of stuff. And I'm like, yeah, no, it's, it's really good, you know? And sometimes looking into something is, is, you know, super sexy and, you know, you want it and all that. But I say, well, you know, and, and they say, oh, you get paid really well.

And, and I said, yeah, look, you do, but let's sit down and work out the hourly rate of, you know, my 80 or 90 hours a week versus your 35. And, you know, we can go from there because it's demanding, you know, as you know, it is. Yeah, and that's the challenge of it, but it's obviously there's the rewards are sometimes they don't match what you put into it, but still it's why you probably do it and it's why most people do it.

In terms then of the technology stuff that you've kind of transitioned into now, where did that come from? I would have read stuff you obviously would have worked a little bit with stat sport or doing stuff through the GPS. I remember you were helping out, was it Fermanagh, kind of through GPS and Statsport, and you were kind of helping them in terms of their training, going back a good while, is that right?

Yeah, it was the time they got to the Ulster final, and at the time, I knew Rory Gallagher back then, and he asked me for a bit of a hand, and I said, Jesus, I don't know, I was living in Sydney at the time.

And I said look I'm happy to help you out if you have someone on the ground I'll structure up a program for you I'll get the GPS numbers and I'll build out a plan for you, I did exactly the same with him back then how I would with the coaches now around your game style, how you want to play what we did then was for Manor back then I guess there weren't a great side in terms of success.

And like I said to her and I had only a brief stint with Rory when he was at Calvin like I only knew him probably two years and not that well at the time and when I got a phone call I was a bit surprised but I said look we can do this in a way that.

Could get you quick success but it ultimately means that you're you're going to have to really push the players so we went in and what we did was we went in a non-conventional program and i said we're gonna we're not gonna do weights because you're not gonna get a benefit in weights in in one or two years well you can but what are your big big things you need to improve on because we need to get fit so i said right i'm gonna put a fitness program in place that is gonna

push players to you know their limits but they'll get very fit we do it in a relatively safe way but you have to trust what we're doing in these blocks of time because you're gonna have to ask the players to dig the well that they haven't gone to before you know so we've got a program with them which was really highly monitored in terms of load we ran i remember i think something like you know 35 to 40 kilometers a week now it's stuff that i i wouldn't be i'm not advocating for

in in a general setting yeah but i said to rory if we want to push the boundary because dunny gold were the running team at the time right and i said if we want to push the boundaries to get there then i think this is what we can do so we went alternate night running we did blocks of i think something like 14 days and and then break and we did alternate where we did boxing sessions bike sessions cross training sessions to sort of cheat the.

System in a way to get anaerobically very fit right okay okay and they did the boys were great they all bought in oh obviously you know at the time the management. Team rice mcmenon was there i came over at christmas my brother was getting married and I spent two days with them and, and they were great, great guys, like really, really, really good people. And they were running a really good show. I said. What all I need is I need a data scientist person. So a sports scientist type person.

There was a really good guy in Ferman at the time, which was really good. I said, I need a dietician because we need to get as lean as possible. Cause there was a few boys, you know, carrying a bit of, a bit of Christmas around. So they got as lean as they could. So we, we stripped the philosophy in terms of stripping their body weight off, making them super quick, super agile running team.

And you know, they got to an ultra final. so yeah probably maxing out yeah yeah and and you can only do that for a really really short period you know if you want to do something properly you need to you know put a nice long-term plan in place and period and all that sort of stuff so please don't go down 35 35 to 40k a week is not is not the target people yeah that is it's definitely not it's definitely and i've got But the thing, Mike, then.

Going back to your GPS, so I had a relationship with Alan Clark, the owner of Statsports at the time, and we were able to get some GPS units that we used, and everything was monitored, every player. So I'd receive them, say, Tuesday night training session. I'd get them my Wednesday morning. I analyze them. I send a report back. I'll design the running block for the next set, and I'd always periodize it like that if we weren't reaching.

X number of speed percentages, you know, we'd make sure we'd get them the next time, you know, et cetera. So it was very, very monitored, very scientific approach, you know, so, but it was good fun for a short period. Yeah, something different. And the technology now that you're more full-time invested in, talk to us about your role with them.

Yeah, I guess, look, my first look at sports technology was when I was working back with the GEA. I don't know if you remember when we had to, you know, load...

Things into a system called smarter base which was yeah you know two logs and and summer camp logs and it was just a basic excel document back then like you know a hybrid you know that was back in probably 2008 or 9 you know nearly nearly 20 years ago at this stage but technology like normal technology has it has advanced so so much i've i've i've been a user of sports tech in my time here in Australia from a software point of view, so athlete management systems,

operation systems, and also hardwares in terms of GPS, watches, wearables, polar heart rate, Garmin. You know, now we're advancing into Whoop and Aura rings and these different things.

And, you know, I'd seen a number of athlete management systems that we use in our time for, you know looking at wellness scores and strength and conditioning programs and and you know the like and when i when i sort of came out of the st kilda role a year and a half ago now i'd been work not hadn't been working i'd been using teamwork's products so their operation system which is basically the schedule and the calendar the files forms media how we communicate with players and the efficiencies of

that product alone was saving me and my role six seven hours a week like yeah you know couple that but the athletic management systems that we were using like that i was able to set up you know readiness scores for players and individual development plans for players in that so there were systems that you as a coach could tap in and see you know the comments and all of our data was sort of in in the one one place as as opposed to scattered you know in in different documents

so look at i was fortunate i had relationships with some of the lads that were working with with teamwork teamwork's were have been around since 2006 were set up by our ceo who's american base zach maridis he's a former juke football player and he set up this this company back in 06 to solve a pinpoint around scheduling communication and and.

Fast forward 19 years now, he's grown that company into nearly 500 employees, into 11 countries, into 6,000 sports teams that we work with, into 18 million athletes that are logging into our platform, which is really, really cool. We work with anything from amateur level right up to schools, right up to the American Olympic body, you know, name a sport probably in, or sorry, name a club or a sport in the world. And we're, we're probably working with them.

You know, to be honest, my role in the company is I'm director of, of performance products. So we've different categories. So think of what, what Microsoft might be for a business, you know, they've got Word and Excel and PowerPoint. We've got appropriate products for sport. So we've athlete management system. We've a recruiting platform. We've an operations platform. We've a branding and marketing platform and so on and so forth. We've got 12 products in our suite.

Monster, so. Yeah. And look, in fairness, a lot of, sorry, some of the GEA clubs, you know, our counties are using the products. So I reckon we've got five or six GEA counties that are using them currently at the moment, like Kerry is one, Tyrone is one, Dublin, the big counties are trying to streamline their operations, efficiencies, and how they approach them, and Kildare is another one that's using it, I believe, too.

Here in Australia and APAC, I'm responsible for that performance market, so athlete management, strength and conditioning, nutrition.

Recruiting falls under my area as well, so I get out to different clubs and sports and and as i mentioned i'm going to india now next week to work with the ipl cricket sides and it's been great like new zealand new zealand rugby are a big client of ours here australian rugby are we're working with a lot of clients with around these different solution packs anything from you know institute of sports to performance academies schools type thing as well so it's very diverse

pretty yeah yeah and and those those academies even in the ga context now have become so so vast in terms of the numbers of kids that are that are there and again trying to track their information their their growth sports their their every kind of metric that that is being recorded for them something like that is obviously that's a very useful tool to be able to just collate that information and keep everything in the one kind of a stream

yeah most ever and i think the big thing is right when we when we look at. When we look at a GA organization, a sporting club organization, whatever it is, like we always ask people, what are the things you're trying to solve? You know, pain points. And generally it's, we're doing things all over these different places. Okay.

And we've got this diagram. It's, we call it the spaghetti diagram where players are receiving communications via WhatsApp and PDF and email and text message and a phone call and whatnot.

Not and and the athletes like are the players like jeez you know there's so much yeah so what we've tried to do is centralize the approach for the player uh to make it more efficient for the coach to be able to communicate more effectively and we're also trying to sort of empower that data that it's not siloed in all these different places trying to streamline that data so it can aggregate and it can tell a story better rather than you having to piece it all together the

system doesn't yes okay and there's obviously a facility there for for video review video analysis stuff that players can receive that kind of stuff all on that platform without having to get it through a whatsapp group or something else is that yeah we yeah we we work with it's a good point, actually. So we work with the likes of Huddle, so Huddle as a video platform. Let's say it's Cat Sports or Catapult as GPS, Hardwares.

Team builder as as opposed to a strength conditioning platform that you can build and what we've done sort of smartly is we've created apis which is basically connection point from our system to their system that we can ingest the data and then aggregate it and represent it so they can still have siloed areas in strength conditioning but what our system does is is bring it all together to sort of maximize the outcomes for the club or the organization and also keeps

everyone sort of on the same page in relation to making better informed decisions, I guess. Yeah, interesting. And so you're, like you said, you're off to India next week and different things.

What's next for you in a coaching? Will you ever, will you kind of, have you any itch to get back on the field in a more hands-on capacity at some days down the line? Or do you see this technology piece as your main body of work over the next period of time? Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I love what I'm doing right now. I've loved all my jobs that I've done in sport. Like I really have. I'm really loving what I'm doing now from a teamwork side of thing.

Like we work remote a lot. I go and visit a lot of people and whatnot here as well. So it gives me a bit more flexibility to be able to coach. So I also coach amateur level here. Got a small role with, well, it's a small role on paper, but it's a big role off paper where I'm heading up, head of future football is the title there. So it's strong. It's like the old school club link. We've got a Dillassal school up the road, that Navid football school.

We got a Dillisal old boys old collegiate football club and what I'm doing is ensuring the conveyor belt of talent is coming through we roll out football programs for years 7 to 9 so basically all the secondary school basically from first year to fifth year or sixth year I instill strength and conditioning programs I've got about 5 or 6 coaches working in the school with me running that and then what I do is I coach the under 19s team in the club and that's my baby

I love it and that's enough for me at the moment and we've got we'll have two. Under-19s teams this year we've got something like 70 odd players coming down to play we've got some headaches that we'll have to make tough decisions on in a couple of weeks where we'll have to pick a couple of panels but, What I'm trying to do, Mike, with them is create that conveyor belt of talent for the senior team. So we've got an amateur A team. It'd be like a senior club team, I guess, back home.

And what I'm trying to do is keep the conveyor belt of talent coming through. And because it's amateur, these guys don't get paid. It's probably the third league Dell. So you've got AFL, you've got BFL, which is semi-professional, and you've got amateur.

But what the league does it can attract other paid leagues in the country to come and take our players away so a bit like what's happened in Ireland in a way what we try and do is give them a really good experience but also we try and wrap some jobs and. Corporate opportunities and apprenticeships and different things for the young lads to be able to go to university and have a career as well alongside football. Yeah, very, very GA-like. So really, at that level, it's very, very similar.

Yeah, interesting. Actually, we're bringing I'm actually coming home on April 4th. We're bringing 25 16-year-olds back to play five De La Salle schools in Belfast. We're going to go up to the Derry-Donigal game. Tony Scullion's taking us through a session. We go down to Waterford and play De La Salle Waterford. We're playing St. John and Dublin.

We're going over to St. Gerard's Mayo and we're going to play De La Salle them dogs so it's going to be a great cultural experience for the lads in in a couple of weeks time yeah brilliant that's a nice a nice trip yeah hopefully the weather will have improved a little bit over here at that stage for you so it won't be too much of a shock nick i'm after i it's it's late over there now man so i i i let you go but i just want to thank you again very much for your time i

know you're you're obviously very busy and you're traveling and different things so i appreciate you making the time and just for the people i would have said it in the introduction again Nick I would have done this I suppose as obviously as a way to try and help out coaches and try and tap into people like yourself who are operating at the top end of the tree and also as a fundraiser for Tiernanog Orphanage in Tanzania where it's again run by Kerry woman

here Louise Quill who's done incredible work over there so for people again that have found value in the content of that conversation or any of the ones that I've kind of done previously I'd be asking people just to try and find the link in the podcast description or on my social media stuff and just throw in a couple of Euros and it's all going very much directly to Tiernan Ogue and to Louise Quayle and that foundation. So, Nick, thanks again for your time, man. Really appreciate it.

Great, great. It was a great chat. And look, anytime, if you ever want me back on, you know, give me a shout. Brilliant. 100%. Music.