Limerick’s extraordinary hurling success has clearly caught the attention of the Irish provinces and now two of the backroom team which contributed to the county’s back-to-back All-Ireland titles, and three championships in the last four years, have been enlisted by Ulster and Munster.
Ulster have hired Limerick's strength & conditioning coach Mikey Kiely, who had combined both roles in the summer months before becoming a full-time part of their set-up, while Munster have brought the county's sports psychologist, Caroline Currid, on to their performance staff.
Widely regarded as one of Ireland’s leading performance psychologists, Currid has been involved in the backroom teams of six All-Ireland-winning teams – Tyrone footballers (2008), Tipperary hurlers (2010), Dublin footballers (2011) as well as Limerick’s three hurling wins.
Interestingly, Currid was not involved with Limerick when they lost in the All-Ireland semi-finals to Kilkenny in 2019 before resuming her work with the squad over the last two years and after last month's 16-point rout of Cork in the final at Croke Park, manager John Kiely said: "It goes back to the 2019 semi-final against Kilkenny.
“It was all about this season, and maximising what we could do. We came into the season obviously as champions. In ’19, we came into the semi-final, didn’t quite find the performance across the 75 minutes against Kilkenny. This year we managed to carry the tag much, much better. We coped with it much better. And it’s a great reflection on the work that Caroline has done with the players.”
In his victory speech in the Hogan Stand, Limerick captain Declan Hannon described the work Currid did for the squad as "indescribable".
Currid has also worked as a performance psychologist in the business world with chief executives and senior management teams, and in many different countries outside Ireland, such as the UK, USA and Australia with multinational companies.
She has also worked with the former Munster, Ireland and Lions captain Paul O'Connell and Kenya's 800m Olympic champion, David Rudisha.
Mental wellbeing
Confirming that Currid was now a consultant with the Munster squad, head coach Johann van Graan said: “She is in for a few days a week. She’s done excellent work with other teams, she’s working one-on-one with a few of our lads and it’s great to have her involved.
"Pieter Kruger previously worked with us from South Africa and was involved with multiple teams, but because of Covid he could no longer fulfil that role, and we looked around in Ireland. It's such a need, not only the mental wellbeing of your players but also the sports psychology piece. She's very good at what she does and it's great to have her as a consultant and part of our group.
“It’s a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things, but she’s part of our staff and like all of our staff she contributes a lot, and it’s great to have her on board.”
While noting Currid was “only new in the door”, backrower Jack O’Donoghue admitted: “We are in awe of her, she has an incredible CV and we are all really looking forward to working with her as a team and as individuals.
“It’s still early doors yet and I suppose maybe after the first few games we will sit down and we will talk about some of the fundamentals and values that she feels are really important for a high-performance team and, look, to be able to take anything off an All-Ireland-winning team will be great and to use some of their values maybe. But it’s still early doors where we haven’t done too much work with her yet, but really looking forward to it.”
