The new rules currently being trialled in Gaelic football are altering the nutritional demands required of players – particularly goalkeepers – according to Niamh Mallon.
Mallon is the performance nutritionist for Pádraic Joyce’s Galway senior footballers but she is also an elite intercounty player herself with the Galway senior camogie team.
Originally from Portaferry in Down, she has been living and working in Galway since 2018 but only transferred to play camogie with the county last year, a season that ended with an All-Ireland senior camogie final appearance and an All Star.
Mallon believes the FRC enhancements in men’s Gaelic football are having a wide-ranging impact on how teams play and prepare for matches.
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“Yeah, absolutely, and I think the big one is the goalkeeper,” she says. “The demands and the distance covered and the high-speed running of the goalkeeper, with the change in the rules, is huge.
“A goalkeeper’s carbohydrate loading protocol has changed dramatically from this time last year, just to meet the demands of what they’re doing in terms of workload.
“That’s a key learning we’ve taken and something we’ve tried to address and implement in our squad.
“The middle eight as well and the three up and three back is changing too. You’re just trying to make sure that everyone has enough fuel on board to get through games, that’s really important.
“As the demands increase, fuelling demands must go with that and that’s absolutely something we’ve been looking at and something that we’re making the players very aware of, that their energy demands and particularly their carbohydrate demands are going to have to increase to align with the increasing demands of the game.”
This is her second season with Joyce’s back room team as Mallon continues to juggle the logistical challenges of being involved with two county set-ups.
“It sounds a lot more chaotic than it actually is,” she adds. “It actually works out very well. With the camogie we train Mondays and Wednesdays, and the footballers train Tuesdays and Thursdays, so there’s scope to make it work.”
When the winding road of sport brought her to Croke Park for last year’s All-Ireland senior camogie final, Mallon found herself playing against a former Down team-mate in Sorcha McCartan, who is now living in Cork.
“I played with Sorcha for two or three years,” recalls Mallon. “We were on the same Down team that won the intermediate All-Ireland with Down in 2020, she’s a great player.”
The pull of home remains strong and Mallon – whose dad Martin captained Down – admits leaving the Mourne jersey behind was a difficult decision.
“Yeah, it was. It was definitely something I didn’t take lightly at all. Like, it was all I’d ever known, I had been playing with Down since I was 15 years of age. I had an awful lot of friends and an awful lot of relationships built up. It wasn’t easy at all.
“Just probably the logistics of it didn’t line up any longer. I commuted from 2018, it takes its toll on your body. It was probably a case of the time was right to make the move.”
– Mallon was speaking at the announcement of a three-year partnership that will see Solgar become the official vitamin partner of the GAA and GPA.
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