MSc Sports Performance Analysis

Growing up in Co. Limerick, Declan O’Rahilly played a bit of everything sport-wise. Once he got into secondary school became the focus.

It was during his time in secondary school that he also developed an interest in sports performance, which developed from his general love of sport.

“It was the passion for sport that led me down to trying to understand more about the science behind the sport and how to make people better,” he said.

From school, he became a personal trainer and worked in nearby Roscrea for a number of years after receiving a qualification in Exercise and Health Fitness

He then went on to study strength and conditioning in his native Limerick, receiving a first-class honours degree in the discipline in 2018.

During his time studying S&C, Declan was able to get valuable experience as the Lead S&C coach for the Tipperary Senior Camogie Team.

He then spent two months on an internship with Rugby Canada where he was responsible for things like performance testing, speed development, programme design, and injury rehabilitation.

Upon his return to Ireland, he began work for Tipperary GAA once more, this time filling the role as an S&C coach for the Minor footballers.

It was towards the end of his tenure with Tipp GAA that Declan got his first taste of teaching as an assistant lecturer with TUS. Shortly after taking up that role, he was offered a similar position with Portobello Institute, through a mutual connection.

“Susan [Giblin] actually worked with my wife with Tipperary GAA.

“It was through a conversation with Susan that Portobello came about. I got wind of them at that stage. I was doing work with TUS as well in terms of lecturing. So, I had previous experience with lecturing. Then the opportunity arose with Portobello on the MSc in Performance Analysis,” he said.

Declan now teaches on both the BSc and MSc in Performance Analysis at Portobello. He says that teaching gives him very similar satisfaction to his practitioner work.

“It’s similar to my coaching. I enjoy helping people.

“The main enjoyment in teaching comes from seeing students graduate, seeing them progress in their career and playing a small part in them developing academically and sometimes professionally as well,” he said.

Like many in his position, Declan finds working in education alongside being a practitioner very beneficial in staying on the top of his game.

“What you teach, and educate people on, you then get to put into practice. Educating people definitely keeps you upskilled in current research and new ideas. If you work in the industry as well, you get to practice what you’re preaching. They do compliment each other quite well,” he said.

Declan has been teaching in Portobello since the end of 2021 and has been enjoying his time so far.

“There’s a family feel to Portobello. Everyone there is willing to help you out.

“For me, my class numbers are small, so you get great interaction with the students. The student-tutor ratio is quite beneficial for the students in that they get a lot of time with the tutor. That aspect of it is great.”

Position: Tutor

“In the right mindset, you can turn your weaknesses into strengths” 

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others” 

“Don’t lose the forest for the trees” 

About Sami Dowling 

Sami has over 15 years of experience as a strength and conditioning coach across multiple sports from development right up to and including the elite level. He spent 10 years working with Leinster Rugby and the IRFU and has extensive experience in the world of GAA at both club and county levels. He has worked with senior intercounty teams such as Dublin, Down, Longford, and Wexford, as well as club teams St. Vincent’s, Cuala, Carbury and Ballymun Kickhams. Sami has also transferred his skill set into the world of hockey, spending the last number of years working with Hockey Ireland and Pemproke Hockey club.

Sami’s Teaching Philosophy 

After completing his Master’s in Strength in Conditioning, Sami gravitated towards tutoring, wanting to bridge the gap between evidence-based research and the art of coaching science. 

Qualifications

• Masters in Sports Science, UKSCA

Research / Industry Participation 

• Sports Science 
• Strength & Conditioning 

“I think the interactions with students are great. You always get different feedback off different students. You’re teaching them, but they’ll teach you a few things as well which is brilliant.”

Ciara Mulrooney is currently a lecturer on the BSc in Sports Therapy for the Portobello Institute. But her journey to becoming a qualified athletic therapist was a rather scenic one. While becoming an athletic therapist was on her radar going back to her school days, it was a different venture that kept her busy in the aftermath of her Leaving Cert.

“I had always thought that being a sports therapist or physio is what I wanted to do. But during school I used to work in sailing, I would go away on the tall ships. So, after the Leaving Cert I went away and sailed on tall ships for a while. I sailed around Ireland, the UK and northern Europe”

After her maritime adventures, Ciara then travelled down under a spent a full year in Australia before returning home to Ireland. Once back, the desire to become an athletic therapist was re-discovered, but she wanted to be sure of herself before fully pursuing that career path.

“When I came back home, I went and did a PLC course in Sports Therapy in college just to make sure that going back full time was what I wanted to do. So, after that I went to DCU as a mature student and did my Athletic Therapy and Training degree there because I was fully sure that it was something that I wanted to do.”

It would be another while before Ciara would venture into the world of academic as she returned to her native Sligo. Ciara works as Head Athletic Therapist for a number of teams in the northwest.

• Sligo Ladies football team at Senior, Minor, U16 and U14 level
• Sligo Rovers Women’s teams at U19, U17 and the incoming senior team
• IT Sligo GAA Academy in hurling, football, and the ladies’ teams
• Coolera GAA in hurling football, and the ladies’ team

In addition to her responsibilities with the teams above, Ciara also set up her own clinic, Recalibrate Sligo Injury Clinic in 2016. Her main enjoyment came from interacting with her patients but before long, she began taking on final year students for their placement.

“I started taking final year students and mentored them for their final year placement. So, I think that lead to looking more into the academic side. I went on to Trinity College then and did my Masters in Sports and Exercise Medicine. Finished that at the start of 2020 after handing in my thesis. Then the opportunity in Portobello came along and I’ve been happy teaching students since then.”

Ciara has been with Portobello for almost two years and, while maintaining her field work, has really enjoyed the opportunity to teach what she learned in her career so far.

“I think the interactions with students are great. You always get different feedback off different students. You’re teaching them, but they’ll teach you a few things as well which is brilliant.

“It’s just great to see them develop, see them move and gain confidence in their skills and see how they progress through the different modules and getting confidence and competence going into the real world.”

Brian Spring is a tutor for Portobello Institute’s sports department, working across a number of different modules including Human Physiology and Applied Principles of Strength and Conditioning.

Brian grew up in Co. Mayo, developing a strong love for sport and fitness through his playing of soccer and Brazilian jiu jitsu. He carried that love of sport right through his youth and into university.

“I decided to do Sport and Exercise Science in UL. Did my undergrad degree there for four years and loved every second of it. Ended up graduating top of my class.

“Then I went on and did a master’s in Sports Performance in UL also,” he said.

During his time doing his undergraduate, Brian was able to avail of some valuable practical experience many miles from his Mayo home.

“I worked with the West Coast Eagles in Australia for a year during my undergraduate degree.

“During their 2018 Grand Final winning season, I helped out with them on the sports science. Things like GPS, questionnaires, RPE monitoring and also their strength and conditioning side of things. In the gym with the lads every day, helping them with their gym programmes,” Brian said.

Brian’s disciplines cover a wide area of professional sports, but he says there isn’t one specific area he prefers working in.

“I enjoy everything because it all works together in terms of nutrition, psychology, physiology.

“Nothing works by itself; they all complement each other. I like looking at sport in a broader sense, trying to make the puzzle work and make everything fit together,” he says.

While on the field success was always the end goal for him and the team, Brian says there’s much more to enjoy from a backroom perspective than winning on matchday.

“Obviously seeing the team win on game day is great.

“But I also like seeing players return or if they are coming off a bad patch of performance and you’ve helped them do a bit of extra work in the gym. Whether it’s a bad patch of performance or coming back from injury, seeing them have a good game on the day is quite satisfying as well,” Brian said.

Upon returning from Down Under, and completing of his second degree with the university, Brian was offered a role as a teaching assistant with UL, discovering a passion for teaching along the way.

“After my master’s I worked as a teaching assistant in UL for a year. I taught labs and tutorials on nutrition, physiology, biomechanics, strength and conditioning, a bit of everything really, from undergraduate to postgraduate degree.

“I really enjoy seeing the students reach their goals for learning.

“From week one, their knowledge on physiology isn’t that wide and you get them to week 12 and you can have a proper discussion about exercise physiology and strength and conditioning, and they can start critically analysing what I’m saying to them and ask questions. Knowing that they can bring that information into a practical setting is quite rewarding too,” he said.

Like many practitioners who teach alongside their practical work, he likes how one can inform the other, and vice versa.

“The better understanding you have of the physiology and the strength and conditioning and all the theoretical things, the better you are able to explain these things to the athletes. That increases their buy-in, it makes them more likely to engage in the programme and what you’re telling them to do.

“And vice versa, obviously having a better understanding of how to communicate with athletes, how the theoretical knowledge is used in a practical sense, you can take that information to the students. There are times when there’s a bit of a disconnect between people who are lecturers, and who aren’t practitioners. It’s good to do both,” Brian said.

Brian now works with Portobello Institute across multiple degree programmes. While the UL position was something offered to him, he says that his current role with Portobello that he actually went looking for.

“In UL, it was something that I was approached for. But the Portobello gig is something I sought out and got in contact with Susan about. I love the teaching so it’s definitely something I want to keep on doing going forward.

“Now I’m in Portobello, lecturing on physiology, exercise physiology and strength and conditioning modules.

“I’m loving it so far. As I mentioned, I love working with people and helping them reach their goals. But I think the part I’m enjoying the most, so far, is seeing people’s knowledge grow.

“Having them a bit confused on week one until they’re asking some really great questions come week 12. We’re able to have conversations as a class and have a debate in class on certain topics. Just seeing their understanding and confidence grow is probably my favourite bit,” he said.

While he is exploring his passion for teaching with Portobello, Brian does not rule out a future focus on a return to more practitioner work.

“I definitely would like to keep working in sport in some respect.

“I think before, I always wanted to work at the highest level of sport. I now like the idea of working at the academy levels or with youth athletes a bit more because I feel like their development is nearly more important than the elite athletes’ development, which has nearly peaked.

“You’re maintaining their levels of fitness or skill whereas in a developing age, you can see the growth a lot more.”

Barry Roe started out his career in what he calls one of the big three (Business, Medicine, Law).

“Nobody ever really entertained the possibility of a real career in sports, even though there were a lot of serious athletes involved, people who were hugely successful in their sporting lives, got scholarships and everything. They never took sport seriously in terms of seeing it as an actual career path.”

He landed that coveted corner office in a tall building managing pension funds. Barry had what most would consider a perk. His office literally overlooked the Leinster training ground. If Leinster scored a try off a set piece move on Friday night, Barry had seen it happen on Tuesday. He knew who the next superstar talent was and got to watch him everyday.

But that’s not what Barry wanted. Instead of a perk, it was only adding to his misery in his office job.

“It was only my wife really who sat me down and said ‘Look you’re obviously miserable.’

Having studied something like business and marketing, it was a great experience…but if I could go back I would definitely have just gone through the sporting route. If I could talk to my teenage self I would say what do you actually really like to do and what would you like to do with the rest of your life as opposed to what do you think you should be doing.

Forget what you think you should be doing, just go do what you like to do and you’ll succeed in it. You’ll make more successful leaps and bounds far quicker than you would slogging it out during a recession in finance.”

With a very understanding wife at his side, Barry gave up his career in finance and became a personal trainer. He earned his MSc Sports Performance from the University of Limerick before becoming a strength and conditioning coach and nutrition advisor for Munster Rugby.

“When you’re sitting there thinking ‘I’m here working in pension funds until I potentially start drawing my own pension.’ Nah, that was not happening. No. Game over.”

Having worked with elite athletes and having set up his own personal training business, Barry then sought out to satiate his desire to educate. That’s how he wound up at Portobello Institute.

“My philosophy is to always be open to new challenges and opportunities. In doing so, I feel that I will maintain a fresh perspective and continue to grow professionally and personally. My goal as an educator in the undergraduate program is to provide students with the knowledge and skills to become professionally competent in their chosen pathways.

My teaching philosophy takes a student-centric approach. I strive to create a collaborative and interactive learning environment; one that allows our diverse student body to share their own unique experiences and perspectives. My overall aim is to equip my students with the skills and confidence to make a seamless transition from their academic studies into their chosen careers.”

Becoming an educator was a natural fit for Barry as he has continually sought out education himself as a student. His initial degree in marketing wasn’t ultimately what he wanted to build his career in but it didn’t mar his passion for education. Since then he has earned his Masters from UL but also completed the National Qualifications in Suspension Training, Pre & Post Natal Exercise, Indoor Cycling and Kettlebell Training and further qualifications with the IRFU, U.K. Anti Doping, ISAK and Les Mills.