David Breen smiles as the contrast of his professional life and an amateur pursuit comes into focus.
The Na Piarsaigh man has been dogged with injury this season, which is a cruel irony as he seeks to prevent and rehab injuries in his day job with Leinster rugby as a physiotherapist.
The Limerick hurler has suffered with shin and hand injuries that have limited his involvement with the Munster champions.
However he admits that against medical advice he rushed back from a shin injury to help his club beat Kilmallock in a Limerick county semi-final, with the result that he missed their county final win.
“It’s difficult when you work in that environment, you’re advising players to do one thing and then you’re going out doing the exact opposite thing yourself. But obviously GAA and professional sport is two different things. You wouldn’t be allowed do that if you had a contract.”
Breen will only be hurling for his club this season after making a decision in late 2015 to excuse himself from TJ Ryan’s panel.
Travelling up and down from Dublin to Limerick was not ideal, and Breen also feels that he owned something to his employers for their understanding over the last number of years, when he been away or injured while on club duty.
“Yeah, I got a bit of a doing coming in after the Munster final, when they saw me coming on for the final 15 minutes of the game where I had been wearing a cast earlier on that week. I have to be physically able to do my job too, there is no such thing as ringing in sick or I need five or six weeks off in that environment so I think the players are pretty understanding as to what’s at stake.
“But that would have been one of the best reasons that I stepped away from Limerick this year, because I have to show a commitment to my job too and hurling is definitely not going to pay the bills.”
The Munster champions are in the final stages of their preparation to face Cushendall in this year’s AIB All-Ireland club hurling final in Croke Park.
Breen is in his second year working with the professional outfit, and admits that he has been accommodated despite his gruelling sports schedule, and injuries over the last number of months.
He also feels that working with one of the most high-profile professional sports outfits in the country can only be good for his hurling
“You learn to train a lot better yourself, especially in the strength and conditioning. You are working with a lot of S&C coaches who have a lot of experience and they know how to manage players and you are just taking advice from them. In GAA, it is a bit unregulated in terms of who works with what teams and what their qualifications are whereas in professional sport, you have to have a decent CV to get hands on these athletes.”
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