Galway's Niamh Mallon to play a week after getting married

by Daragh Ó Conchúir

Thursday is her first day back at work after taking a week and a half off to get married but Niamh Mallon is agreeable to a quick chat from a Galway coffee shop beforehand to discuss a range of endeavours, personal and professional.

There aren’t too many vacancies in the Mallon diary, so a gap week in the Very Camogie League schedule was availed of to arrange the nuptials, eight days ago.

Thankfully, as a Ruairí Óg, Cushendall hurler, Dominic Delargy is a fully-paid-up member of the all-in Gaelic games cohort. He understands the imperative of immediate priorities and postponing the honeymoon until the end of the year, when it could be done properly, did not require discussion.

As Robert Frost penned, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep,” and that certainly applies in the world of his new wife.

Being busy has never held any fears for Mallon and it is no coincidence that whatever she turns her hand to, the Portaferry native operates at high performance level.

A current All-Star attacker with the Galway camogie team having transferred from Down last year after 14 seasons in red and black, the 30-year-old is also a nutritionist with the Galway footballers. What brought her to the City of the Tribes in 2018, is her work as a sports scientist and performance nutritionist with Orreco.

Firing a wedding into the middle of all that with both inter-county seasons well under way, it must have been hectic, right? Not if you have a good team around you.

“The wedding side of things, if it hadn't been for my mother and for my sister in law, Erin, it probably wouldn't have went ahead. They done super work in terms of preparation and planning everything and gave me a handout. So it’s been probably hectic for them. But for me, I've kind of just plugged away training and working and just more or less showed up last Friday and got married!”

Mallon took care to avail of the rare opportunity to decompress, heading back up to home a fortnight ago, cocooned by those that know her longest and best.

“It was class just to build into the wedding. It was a really enjoyable time and something I'll probably look back on really fondly in time… With work being so hectic and so many moving parts, particularly with training and being based down the road (in Galway), I probably hadn't seen a lot of people in the build-up to the wedding, hadn't really seen anybody since Christmas up home. So it was nice that week just to catch up with family and friends.”

She took a few more days afterwards but was back into the routine by Thursday and togs out today as Galway look to bounce back from their first defeat of the Very League against Dublin at Kilbeacanty (2pm throw-in, live on the Camogie Association’s YouTube channel).

A knee operation meant she made her debut in maroon in last year’s final, nearly turning it her new side’s way. All she computes is that they lost to Tipp however, and it’s the same with the All-Ireland reverse at the hands of Cork, even though they performed so well.

No doubt that is how the Galway footballers view reaching last year’s All-Ireland final too.

A former intermediate player of the year who enjoyed the ultimate success with Down at premier junior and intermediate level, Mallon understands that high performance sport is about improvement, but finals are for winning. And losing the camogie All-Ireland in particular, having drawn level with the Rebels into the final quarter, really hurt.

“The manner in which we've lost the game down the stretch is something that will live with us for a while, and is definitely something that we will want to rectify, and definitely something we feel we can rectify, if we get our house in order coming into the championship in a few weeks’ time.

“You take the learnings, you draw on those and work on those going forward. At this point in the season, everything is just targeted and looking forward to the next game. And every game and every kind of campaign takes on a life of its own. So it is taking the learnings and they be at the forefront of your mind (but) not letting the negativity of defeat hang over you is really important as well.”

She is enjoying working with the Galway footballers, even more so with the new rules requiring changes to nutrition and refuelling, just as in coaching, conditioning and mindset.

The rhythm of training and games works pretty smoothly from day to day, though there was a group championship game last year where she was not around to collect her player of the match award, having been substituted so she could hit the road and link up with the footballers.

It is her profession that brought her to Pádraic Joyce’s attention and she is passionate about it. Mallon continues to work on elite female athlete programmes, studying the impact of many variables on the performance and fitness of female athletes in the professional environment. The FitrWoman and FitrCoach apps that have emerged from this research are used all around the world but this is the start, rather than the end of a process.

“Obviously the ACL piece is the piece probably that gets all of the headlines in female sports because it’s such a catastrophic injury. But I think we're only scratching the surface, to be honest with you, in terms of the research, and the understanding of the mechanisms that go behind ACL injuries.

“It's just continuing to support female athletes in the best way we can, and ultimately, to drive the standard of support for female athletes is something that we're looking to do. Over time, we’re gonna learn more and be able to put practices in place to try and mitigate those injuries as much as we can.

“The evidence is still within its infancy. But I think players and athletes are beginning to understand their bodies, and with that, their menstrual cycles. Beginning to identify individualised trends and patterns is probably the best starting point. And then from that we can look put in place strategies, etc, to try and mitigate that. But I think the first protocol is obviously to begin to understand the individual and then go from there.

“It's certainly not a one-size-fits-all (solution), which adds another layer to the complexity, but it's still very much within its infancy.”

As is the inter-county camogie season but we’re hitting the business end of the Very League, with the penultimate round taking place this weekend and only two from six making the final.

“We’re only kind of three games in, but I think, we’ve probably used the guts of 25 players at this stage. The majority of the panel has got game time and will probably get game time, which is great. It’s fantastic to see the depth of the squad coming to the fore and players getting a chance. Because doing it on the training ground is one thing, but getting an opportunity to do it in a competitive, inter-county game is another and that's massively encouraging.

“The last day, Caoimhe Kelly come into the team for her first start and clipped three points, and was super, so there's talent there in Galway and using the League to get those players experience is massively important.”

As is the return to the fold of the likes of the experienced duo, Emma Helebert and Shauna Healy, who Mallon has had plenty of battles with over the years from her Down days.

There is so much to look forward. A honeymoon included.

But miles to go.