Body
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Injury
is inevitable in sport but players are still doing too much, says Colm
O'Rourke. It is the GAA itself that can do most to solve a lot of the
injury crises
OVER the last few weeks, much has been written and spoken about the dreaded cruciate injury, the bane of the modern footballer.It
doesn't just mean a year out of a playing career, but it is far from
the glamour of Croke Park or any other park that the long hours of
rehabilitation must be put in. It is the ultimate solo run, nobody can
help and without the necessary dedication, the time out of playing is
longer or there may be no return at all.
Muhammad
Ali could have been talking about cruciate victims when he said: 'The
fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in
the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those
lights.'
Colm
O'Neill is back dancing under the lights, while far away Colm Cooper,
Eamonn Wallace and Ciarán Kilkenny all have to fight a private battle. I
know all about it as I did the same damage when I was 19, long before
modern techniques of repair were available. Three
months in plaster back then meant total muscle wastage and it is a hard
job getting that leg muscle back. Now at least the rehab process starts
immediately and there is no such muscle damage. Many others before me
just gave up, nobody knew exactly what was wrong, except that 'the knee
was at him'. There is a price to be paid later in life too, but it was
worth it all to dance under the lights.
Of
course there are plenty of club players in a similar situation, but it
is the high-profile players who have focused attention on this injury.
There is a lot of research needed before definitive statements can be
made about cruciate damage frequency in football compared to other
sports where there is a similar range of movements. Perhaps the GAA
should be funding such research for a third-level student, there should
be plenty of data available from soccer and Australian rules especially. In
these games, the same sort of landing and twisting movements are
experienced; in American football and rugby, the injury may be more
associated with contact as happened in the case of the Gooch.
This
particular type of injury has not been ignored in other sports. Some
have taken a look at the type of boots worn, some soccer clubs ban
blades and, while I am certainly no expert, I would agree that the
rotating movement needed by a footballer means it seems more likely to
happen with blades which stick in the ground. This is especially true on
all-weather pitches. The old-fashioned round stud is still the best and
probably the safest.
There
have been new warm-up routines devised which are beneficial to the
whole body, but can do nothing to prevent or explain a cruciate injury
which takes place well into a game. Strengthening the muscles around the
knee also helps, but that was hardly a factor in the cases of Kilkenny
or Wallace and seems irrelevant to the manner in which Gooch sustained
his injury.
When
a player is caught with all his weight on one leg and another player
comes in to attempt a block at full force, then something has to give.
It highlights a design flaw in the human body and the knee is the
weakest point. Then again, the man above was hardly building prototypes
in Adam and Eve with a view to playing Gaelic football.
Some
sports get their players to practise landing techniques. In other
words, to land on both feet simultaneously. This is again fine in
theory, but a footballer, more often than not, after making a high catch
is coming down off balance and trying to get the landing gear sorted is
not that easy.
Action
shots generally show a one-leg landing and the slightest twist then can
cause a major problem. I got over this by never jumping off the ground
again. If you go up on your toes and stop your marker jumping – legally
of course – then the ball will always come down.
Yet
there should always be a conspiracy theory to explain everything. Mine
is hardly outlandish and I go back to a topic I have written about
several times before. Young players are playing far too much and because
of that they are much more liable to injury. There is no proper rest.
The body needs time to recover. Almost all of our top young stars have
played continuously since before Christmas, with third level, county 21s
and seniors.
Even
if they never got cruciate injuries or any other injury, they are still
playing and training far too much and who is to say that their cruciate
injuries are not as a result of an accumulation of minor damage which
never gets a chance to repair? Even the caveman put his head down on a
stone and rested for as long as he could after a day's hunting.
Along
with the best medical research, the GAA itself can do most to solve the
injury crisis with young players. It all goes back to the games
schedule. When will someone tackle the issue?
