Science of sport is the main focus

PROJECT Murphy has Euro assignment with Scotland

Over the Christmas holidays many soccer fans around Meath will be sitting down to to watch games from the English Premier League.

There will be those who will be supporting teams like Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs, Man City, Chelsea or Arsenal perhaps.

Others will be rooting for sides such as Leeds Utd - particularly those members of the Meath Whites Supporters Club.

Others still will be following the fortunes of less fashionable outfits such as West Bromwich Albion (and there are a few devoted, long-suffering supporters of the Baggies in the Royal County).

While many will watch the games unfold, hoping THEIR team prevails, few will have the kind of insights into what life is like in that elite, rarefied world more than than sports scientist and strength and conditioning coach Shayne Murphy.

Now resident with his wife Lorna in Navan, Murphy is building a new life for himself after more than 11 years working in England with a variety of football clubs that included Blackburn Rovers, Liverpool and Manchester City where he spent most of those years.

One of the reasons he ended up back in Ireland was that he wanted to pursue a long-cherished ambition - to set up his own company SDM Performance - which he did in October 2019.

He is in the process of developing that project further.

Part of his work involves drawing up specific training schedules for people, whoever they may be, and one of the outlets he uses for such work is the CrossFit gym in Athlumney.

"Some of work I've done has been with people who are in pain, helping someone like that is such a good feeling, rewarding,” he said.

“It's fine working with the best footballers in the world, but it's also reassuring to help with someone who does not have the advantages of those people, the elite."

While he is based in Meath he continues to work abroad from time to time.

This year alone he has sought to improve the fitness of soccer teams in New York and Belgium as well, unusually, as the Indian cricket team.

He still does consultancy work for Manchester City and last August the 33-year-old Cork man added another chapter to his extensive CV when he became part of the backroom team supporting the Scottish football squad.

Under manager Steve Clarke Scotland qualified for the European Championships next summer.

They will play in Group D with Croatia, Czech Republic and England.

With the Republic of Ireland not participating, Murphy will be one of the very few Irish people involved in the football extravaganza - and much of his preparations for the tournament will be carried out from his home in Navan.

While he is happy with the description of "football scientist" he emphasises it's only part of what he does.

"That's my current role with Scotland, a football scientist. Obviously that includes everything related to sports science, but with a specific relationship to football; sports science as it is applied to the soccer setting, if you like.

"A sport scientist's role changes a lot with the environment you are in. While I was with clubs like Man City and Liverpool, my role was very different to what I do with Scotland because with an international team you are only getting players for 12 or 14 days, or a bit longer for a tournament like the Euros.

“You don't have them long-term, but you still have to figure out what or how each player is currently doing, what they have done and how they are going to fit into the environment they are coming into."

Much of what he does is constantly assessing and monitoring so that when players arrive in a training camp he will be able to design a fitness regime to suit their needs.

"We'll monitor the players. We might get reports from their clubs, just to check if they have picked up injuries.

“We monitor if they are regulars at training, how many games they played, what was the frequency of the games," he explained to the Meath Chronicle.

"Once you have information like that you have an idea of what each player is capable of and on that basis you can start making decisions during a training camp."

Long gone are the days when professional soccer players in England arrived for training and did little else but endless laps around a pitch.

Such an approach, as Shayne Murphy reminds you, is as outdated now as leather footballs.

LIMERICK

As a youngster growing up in Ratchcormac, Co Cork, Shayne Murphy dreamed of becoming a professional footballer, but youthful dreams can all-too-often be sacrificed on the altar of reality.

He played for Fermoy in a local league and Cork City u-18s for a year, but he realised he would never be good enough to earn a living from the game, at least as a player. That realisation made him more eager to explore other routes into the professional ranks - and his story of how he ended up working with teams teams like Liverpool, Manchester City and Scotland is one of a young man following his passion; his dream.

"Once I found out you could be a sports scientist at a football club that was my goal.

“I thought it was so interesting, I wanted to be a footballer at a young age, but I realised that wasn't going to happen.

“I said look, that (sports scientist) is a cool job, I thought I'm interested in football, I'm interested in sports science and how it all works, why not."

The fired-up, focused young Cork man acquired a degree in sports science at the University of Limerick before going to a college in Preston to do his masters.

He did an internship at Cardiff City, then went to Blackburn Rovers for a spell. He got to know people in the sports science business, they got to know him. They could see the interest he had in his work.

Nine years ago after a stint with Blackburn Rovers, Murphy returned to Ireland for the summer and attended the Kings of Leon concert in Slane.

The day before the concert he met Lorna McKelvey from Follistown, Navan and they have remained together since.

Murphy got a chance to do some work as a sports scientist for six months at Liverpool in 2012 and 2013, mostly with the under-age teams.

A lot of his work involved strength and conditioning. He helped out with the Welsh national side and got a call from Manchester City FC. He worked with under-age players there and watched as a talented youngster like Phil Foden made his way through the ranks.

There were also spells with the first-team, working alongside the stars in the City side.

Yet Murphy is reluctant to focus too much on the big-name players. It's not about that, he will tell you, it's about helping players be the best they can. Any player.

Getting to work with footballers at the elite level, he will point out, is not all sunshine and roses.

"It's a very competitive field so you have to have a bit of luck, that's very important, but it's about hard work and perserverance, it's up and down a lot of the time.

“Football is a very volatile industry, you've got to roll with the punches, you've got to be resourceful and persistent and resilient.

“There were times when I didn't think I was going anywhere and all of a suddent things started to happen. You have to keep learning and keep developing."

Working with some of the best young footballers in the world also taught Murphy some invaluable lessons that have stood to him.

"You have to treat them like everyone else. Obviously you show them respect because they are the elite of the elite, but I don't think walking on eggshells and not speaking to the players, or not acting in a normal way with them, is a good process.

"I treat them the same way as anybody else because they get all that (adulation) from somewhere else.

“When you are working with them, you've got to do your job right, to forget almost, about who they are and what they've done. “Your job is to help them as best you can and you can only do that if you focus on what's needed for them rather than who they are," he added.

Murphy says that when he takes on a job with a club or national side he’s not there to impose his own own structures or way of doing things.

“That’s one of the biggest aspects about sports science, understanding how you fit into the bigger picture,” he suggested.

“If your full-back or centre-back is playing a high-line they have to be able to cover the ground behind them so they need to be able to twist and turn and with that in mind you can start doing your physical groundwork,” he concluded.

Willing to step outside his comfort zone, he set up SDM Performance last year, but he's still very much in touch with English football and over the festive season he will, no doubt, be keeping a keen eye on games played in the Premier League - he won't be alone.