NETBALL: SETTING HIS EOIN CONDITIONS

LISA and Kyla Bowman and their Northern Ireland Netball teammates take the court to face hosts Australia in the opening game of the Commonwealth games later this month. Former Derry GAA goalkeeper Eoin McNicholl will be more than an interested spectator, watching on from his Glenullin home. Since his appointment as the team’s Strength and Conditioning coach 18 months ago, McNicholl has been responsible for the physique of Team NI’s netballers. A Hogan Cup winner, an All-Ireland minor winner and a NFL winner, McNicholl has been at the top end of sport. Away from his goalkeeping gloves, he has spent ’10 or 12 years’ going to courses and when he retired from the county scene, it was his time to diversify. “Once I retired from playing for Derry, I saw it as an option of going down this road as a career,” McNicholl told the County Derry Post. It was a random conversation with leading conditioning guru Mike McGurn, where the former stopper grasped his break. At a seminar, along with Mick Clegg who was responsible for looking after the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United and Ashely Jones who had experience of the All-Blacks, McNicholl and McGurn conversed about their common ground – GAA. “I was chatting to him about the whole Derry scene and he rang me up five or six months later - one day out of the blue to  tell me about the job” points out McNicholl of his pathway into the Netball NI. He held the role of Sports development Officer in his native Glenullin, looking after schools coaching and classes in the club gym.  Now he is involved with the Ulster Council and our chat came on his return from coaching at St Patrick’s Glen. With a degree in Sport Science tucked away, he always wanted to look for ‘something in sport’ as a chosen career. The motive for strength and conditioning also came as a result of short fallings in his own career. "I had a year and half out of football through injury and it was basically down to poor warm-up technique and I wasn’t managing my own body right,” informs McNicholl. “I thought it would be good to go down that route and learn a bit more about what I could do to help boys that didn’t have the knowledge I did back then to give them the best chance. “I had spent 10 or 12 years educating myself and spending thousands of pounds going to courses.  He (McGurn) knew I had a decent enough knowledge to take on a role like this,” McNicholl adds. “I was involved with Dunloy (GAA teams) and I got to another level with them.  It is all going the right way fortunately.” Like all sports, the NI netball team has a broad spectrum of players, all with different needs. “You have Caroline (O’Hanlon) who is an elite level athlete plays semi-professional across the water. She had a good base.  Then you had young girls like Michelle Magee who is just 17 years of age – there is a broad range.  It is the same with any team you go into, not everybody has an elite level of knowledge. McNicholl sees it very much as a balancing act, liaising with Head Coach Elaine Rice and physio Martin Clenaghan.  Finding out what the girls have undergone each week and tapering their training to suit. “I suppose it is the same with dual sports like hurling and (gaelic) football, you have to manage the two, to make sure you are not over training to lead to injury. “You always have to keep an open mind in respect of getting them ready and on the court for the time you need them and not just pushing on because you feel they need to do it.  You have to individualise it to suit the player.” By the time the netball squad get on the plane for this year’s Commonwealth Games, McNicholl won’t be with the squad.  His work will be done. “I will be happy enough to watch it on the TV and see how they get on,” he concludes.