Micheál Cahill on creating a 'sustainable and lasting legacy of football in Limerick'

Irish Examiner

4 days ago

Around the world to broaden the mind and deepen the knowledge base. Back home for the 'dream job'.
Limerick football coach Micheál Cahill is well travelled. He's equally well-travelled within the environment of professional sports.
Let's first go around the world and then return home to the 'dream job'.
After the undergrad in Health, Fitness, and Leisure had been ascertained and in the middle of his Masters in Sports Performance, Cahill, in 2013, took up the role of Director of Sports Science at Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas, Texas.
There he had responsibility for the holistic development of 750 athletes across 21 sports.
'I had the luxury of collaborating with a lot of coaches and working with them on the overall performance model. From that, I have notebooks full of how I think other sports might transcend into Gaelic football,' said Cahill.
'One of the biggest learnings there was that S&C is not a sport; it is there to aid performance and aid the sport. For me, working with the 21 different coaches, that was one of the biggest parts, that we are there to aid the sport and the performance.'
A decade in America had so much more squeezed into the gearbag. He reckons he was 'probably the world's longest commuting student' when doing a PhD in Sports Science and Performance with Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
'Between my supervisors there and my other supervisors in Cardiff Met, I used to have my meetings, if I could, halfway between Texas and New Zealand in Cardiff. It allowed me to pop home and watch a bit of football as well, which was great.'
His last five years in the States were with a Texas-based company called Athlete Training and Help. He came in as Vice-President of Performance and Sports Science, later rising to Chief Performance Officer.
'Worked with Houston Dynamo Academy, FC Dallas Academy. I would have consulted a bit across the NFL. Worked with the LA Dodgers primarily around speed as my PhD dealt with such. Did a lot of combine prep, lads prepping for the NFL and off-season programmes.
'Biggest learning curve I had was being exposed to multi-disciplinary professional sporting organisations, and how to work with physios, sports analysis, doctors, surgeons, everything.'
Then Clare manager Colm Collins knew he was returning home in late 2022 before his own mother did. Indeed, among his first stops back on Irish soil was a call into the Collins household.
He did a year on the Banner sideline, a second Clare stint having previously worked under Micheál McDermott and Mick O'Dwyer a decade earlier.
Eventually, he wound up in the Limerick senior dressing-room. The day job is that of Chief Operations Officer at Setanta College, which he thoroughly enjoys, but the 'dream job' is that which he throws himself into once in the door from work.
Having been around the world, how does the set-up of a newly promoted Division 3 side measure up?
'Louth and Clare, over the past decade, have been a brilliant blueprint for Division 4 development football counties. I listened to an interview with Sam Mulroy where he said you basically have two options. You can whinge about being from Louth or you can be the best footballer in Louth.
"Last October, we put those two choices on the table to the Limerick players. I think we'd all agree the team have done the latter.
'With Jimmy, he always has a plan. We are in a Tailteann Cup final, but already he has a plan for next year on where we need to improve. There are so many outstanding people in the set-up, but you always need to be building structures in addition to the people because if the people leave you can't have the whole thing fall like a house of cards.
'If we want to create a sustainable and lasting legacy of football in Limerick, we need to be constantly pushing on and ensuring we are building sustainable structures, in addition to getting good people involved.'