Wesley O'Brien on taking a modern approach to coaching GAA

Carrigaline's Wesley O’Brien had a key role in Cork's camogie success this summer as the strength and conditioning coach.

Dr O'Brien, who heads up UCC’s Physical Education, Sports Studies and Arts degree, is keen to bring those skills from the classroom to the playing field. At the heart of that ethos is who he sees in front of him.

“They are no longer a player, the first thing I treat them is as an athlete,” he said. “You are trying to raise standards in terms of their physical preparation, in terms of elements of their physiological preparations, but I very much live and breathe physical readiness and physical development.

“I am not just a person who puts people into a gym, or does running tests or field tests with them. I always relate it to the game of hurling or camogie and there is no point separating your strength and development from the camogie you have to integrate that piece." 

That ethos has been integral to the Rebels' back-to-back O'Duffy Cup wins, while O'Brien was involved with the All-Ireland winning Cork minor hurlers in 2021 and UCC in the Fitzgibbon Cup in 2019 and '15.

"A fit player doesn’t make an exceptional athlete, so what you are doing in the gym has to transfer to what you're doing on the pitch. We have access to the players only for an hour and a half and there are 24 hours in a day and that’s where the athlete’s mindset comes in.

We understand the game is not a professional sport. I understand that, but players are striding to become the best they can and want that professional standard.

"That’s where as coaches we need to be one in what is happening on and off the field." 

Of course, he acknowledges the outstanding crop of current camogie players.

"I was blown away in 2023 in how humble everyone in the squad was and that has continued this year, but they have this internal spirit that drove me to be a better coach.  And when Galway, who by the way are a very fine team, put it up to the girls in the All-Ireland, that fighting spirit was incredible and it was a super finish by Cork." 

FRESH

Variety and fun ensured the players were hungry at training.

"We know from modern science that players strive off fun, they strive off energy, they strive off variation, whenever a player comes to the gym, track or field, I always have something different."

The backroom team, overseen this year by Ger Manley and previously by Mathew Twomey, are all singing off the same hymn sheet.

Nowhere for O’Brien has the respect for the game’s professionalism become more clearly demonstrated when Cork GAA chairman Pat Horgan said at the banquet following the All-Ireland victory that Cork Camogie are always welcome at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh and that the ladies are part of Cork GAA.

That was a very powerful statement according to O’Brien on the progress of the game.