Rugby

'When I met with Mattie and a couple of senior players, and then sat down with Mickey, they were looking at it like: what more can we do?'

His rugby career may not have turned out how he wanted, but Jonny Davis has used those experiences - the good and the bad - to his advantage, and is now one of the leading strength and conditioning coaches in the country. Neil Loughran talks to a man brought on board by Mickey Harte to help take Tyrone to the next level...

Jonny Davis was good enough to make it to onto the professional rugby stage with Ulster, but by the time that dream ended he was already pursuing his calling as a strength and conditioning coach. Picture by Hugh Russell
Jonny Davis was good enough to make it to onto the professional rugby stage with Ulster, but by the time that dream ended he was already pursuing his calling as a strength and conditioning coach. Picture by Hugh Russell Jonny Davis was good enough to make it to onto the professional rugby stage with Ulster, but by the time that dream ended he was already pursuing his calling as a strength and conditioning coach. Picture by Hugh Russell

THERE is a language in which elite sportspeople converse that few of the rest of us truly understand. We might think we get it, or get it to a kind of a head-nodding degree, but we don’t get it. Not really.

Do a canvas of top-performing athletes, and so many of their practices are the same or similar. But it is the search for something, anything that can push performance to another level – no matter how incremental that increase – which sets apart the best from the rest. Nutrition, physiology, psychology, biomechanics, every possible detail right down to the books they read and the information they consume.

Ten years ago The Irish News ran a 20 questions section with GAA players across all codes – best memory, favourite food, least favourite training drill… you get the drift. The answer to favourite book ranged from Roy Keane’s autobiography, to Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike (no shit), to ‘I don’t read books’.

Ask now and the responses are unlikely to be the same, with many devouring articles and journals on physical and mental self-improvement in search of the extra per cent that could tip the scales.

Jonny Davis gets it.

Before becoming Tyrone’s new strength and conditioning coach at the tail end of 2019, the Jordanstown man had spent 12 years with Ulster Rugby, nine as head of athletic performance. From 2006 until 2018 he witnessed first hand the evolution of the professional athlete, and made it his business to remain ahead of the curve as that arc ascended.

Arming yourself with knowledge is one thing, but experience, empathy and understanding are equally important tools of his trade.

Stephen Ferris tells the story of Davis putting in extra hours when the former Ireland and Ulster flanker was working his way back to full fitness for the 2009 Lions tour to South Africa. Five years later, when Ferris was on the comeback trail from a career-threatening ankle injury, it was Davis who went mountain-biking with the Maghaberry man to help him along the way.

There was a time, though, when he was the aspiring athlete rather than the guiding hand. As a teenager, Davis was Irish Schools’ sprint champion, clocking a time of 10.72 seconds in his 100m gold medal performance.

That pace proved a valuable asset on the wing as his rugby career took flight, going on to represent Ireland from schools’ level through to the U19s and U21s. But when misfortune struck, it did so in horrific fashion.

Playing for the Ireland U21s in the summer of 1997, he suffered a severe left arm break and a neck fracture that went undiagnosed initially because of the extent of the trauma caused to his limb.

“It was an off the ball incident, a late tackle.

“When you anticipate a tackle, you’re braced, you’re ready to take the contact, but in this instance I had passed the ball to my left and somebody blindsided me from the right and I landed badly.

“I had a fractured humerus and damaged a radial nerve in my neck… it took a long time to get back from my arm. It was about nine months before I could move the gearstick in the car. I remember being in my parents’ house trying to hold a glass of orange juice with my left hand.

“I broke three or four glasses on the kitchen floor in my determination not to drop them.”

After 18 months he made it back, and would feature three times for Ulster in 1999; the year of their momentous European Cup triumph. But even in the midst of the celebrations, he knew the dream – that dream anyway - was dead.

Already though the seeds of his future calling had been sown and a year spent in post-2000 Olympics Sydney, at the city’s renowned academy of sport, sealed the deal. Rugby still nagged, until eventually it could nag no more.

“I played a bit for Dungannon when I came home but fractured my neck again. They picked up on old fracture sites, and basically the discs were too damaged to continue to play. Surgery was the only option, so that was me finished.

“Probably if it wasn’t for those experiences in a failed professional rugby capacity, I wouldn’t have got into coaching or pursued the career that I have. With Ulster, just because you’re on a squad doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to make it.

“Very few make it to that top level – I didn’t understand that as a kid. I thought I’d made it, I was in the team, but it’s what you continue to do to stay in that team that matters - and that’s the development of your game and of yourself.”

Expertise, experience, empathy. You can see how these traits would appeal to Mickey Harte as he searched for a successor to the departing Peter Donnelly last autumn. You can also see how, like Ferris, the modern player would gravitate towards those characteristics.

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Mickey Harte made an instant impression on Jonny Davis with his drive and ambition to bring Tyrone back to Gaelic football's top table. Picture by Philip Walsh
Mickey Harte made an instant impression on Jonny Davis with his drive and ambition to bring Tyrone back to Gaelic football's top table. Picture by Philip Walsh Mickey Harte made an instant impression on Jonny Davis with his drive and ambition to bring Tyrone back to Gaelic football's top table. Picture by Philip Walsh

THERE has been little love lost between the warring factions of Armagh and Tyrone since the turn of the millennium, but it was a contact from across the River Blackwater who helped bring Jonny Davis into Red Hand territory.

His younger sister Julie has a long association with the GAA, working as strength and conditioning coach with Kildare and Armagh through the Kieran McGeeney years.

Their other sister Amy, the youngest of the clan who won 38 caps for the Irish rugby team, was previously involved with Down and is currently strength and conditioning coach with the Ulster Rugby academy.

It was Julie who told Jonny there might be an opening with the Orchard’s neighbours. It wasn’t a world with which he was overly familiar – six months on, he’s still learning.

“For anybody who’s a fan of sport, there’s a desire to know more,” said Davis, who also works with superbike king Jonathan Rea.

“Rugby is the anomaly; every other field sport is multi-directional where rugby is linear. There’s nothing smart about rugby – it’s just run until somebody stops you.

“In Gaelic, the appreciation of the ball skills is far superior. Tommy Bowe is really the only rugby player who had a Gaelic past and that was only to his benefit.”

Yet when the opportunity came to immerse himself back in competitive sport, he was instantly intrigued.

“I was busy, head down, doing my own thing. I hadn’t really put a timeframe on any kind of reintegration into coaching or performance, but Julie and I were chatting one day and she mentioned Tyrone were looking for somebody.

“Her connection was through Mattie Donnelly, so I was happy to meet and see what those guys wanted, what their appetite was, what their ambition was. When I met with Mattie and a couple of senior players, and then sat down with Mickey, they were looking at it like: what more can we do?

“They have been so close over the last number of years, but just couldn’t break that glass ceiling. Tyrone are really ambitious in what they want to achieve – that’s clear. I consider myself very fortunate to have coached alongside Brian McLaughlin, who took Ulster to the European Cup final in 2012.

“When I first chatted with Mickey in those initial meetings, those two men are kindred spirits – the passion that they have, regardless of how long they have been involved. It’s evident in every interaction you would have with Mickey, and in his interactions with the players; that undying desire that they have to put everything into Tyrone.

“He’s very open to progressive thoughts too. Even within rugby, I was probably considered to see things a little differently than most of my fellow practitioners across Ireland or the different leagues in Europe, especially with our approach to the integration of technology in sport to help understand individual and team performance.”

To that end, Davis is currently working alongside former Ulster Rugby colleague Chris Hagan on an athletic performance software “that will take GPS data, video data, physiological data collected in the gym and on the field, put those all together and it helps the coach to plan for performance”.

The current lockdown has allowed him to dedicate more time to that venture, and it is something he hopes can be of benefit to Tyrone down the track. But without games there is no data to crunch; Davis misses the group interaction, the competitive dynamic that was just kicking into gear as the Red Hands headed towards a crucial final two games in Division One.

Working around the timetables of the amateur sportsman is a challenge he was unaccustomed to, but is one he has embraced.

“That’s the main difference [with professional sport] - when you have access to the players.

“You always have to remember a lot of them have full-time jobs and, depending on what stage of life they’re at, you have senior players, students, whether they have a girlfriend, a fiancé, a young family… you have to take each player as an individual case and understand their situation.

“Take Michael O’Neill, who’s a tremendous talent moving forward. He’s a plasterer, so he’s on his feet all day, every day. You have to take that into consideration.

“With somebody like Colm Cavanagh, who’s 32, it’s about recognising what his body isn’t able to do that it used to do. He’s got a wealth of experience there and he’s the steadying hand, so you have understand his previous injury history and work with that.

“The role I have is to manage the total load, that includes nutrition content, understanding what their social life has been, the circadian rhythm in their bodies, how that links to their hormone cycles… food plays a really important part in that.

“What we’re looking to do is change patterns, routines and behaviours – maybe how many times they eat, or what they eat and when they eat. If you go into a session and your carbohydrates are depleted that day, you’re going to have an increased perception of how hard that session is, and the same applies to your sleep.

“If you’ve been sleep deprived, you’ll start to see it in guys, red flags… sometimes you can see it in their mood. There’s an honesty call on those things and a level of trust required.”

The Tyrone players have bought into Davis’s way of working without exception, with any initial scepticism long left by the door.

“This is really highly detailed, meticulous work, and he has a lovely way with him,” beamed Harte during an interview back in December.

“He doesn’t have to shout or raise his voice, he just has a lovely manner that players are taking to very well. Even when he’s driving them on and doing hard work, there’s no sad heads about it.

“They just like the idea that this is new, this is different, a new approach to this whole side of work.”

Mattie Donnelly played a part in helping bring Jonny Davis into the Tyrone fold - and the former Ulster head of athletic performance has been impressed by the Trillick's man's focus in battling back from serious injury. Picture by Seamus Loughran
Mattie Donnelly played a part in helping bring Jonny Davis into the Tyrone fold - and the former Ulster head of athletic performance has been impressed by the Trillick's man's focus in battling back from serious injury. Picture by Seamus Loughran Mattie Donnelly played a part in helping bring Jonny Davis into the Tyrone fold - and the former Ulster head of athletic performance has been impressed by the Trillick's man's focus in battling back from serious injury. Picture by Seamus Loughran

The physical conditioning of the group he inherited came as little surprise to Davis, but the mental aptitude – particularly in the face of adversity – has struck a chord. Mattie Donnelly is a case in point.

The Trillick man has fought back from the kind of complicated injury that ends careers, yet it is his attention to detail and tunnel vision that places Donnelly among the top athletes Davis has worked with.

“If you look at what it takes to achieve at the highest level, regardless of sport, you have the physical aspect, but what separates the best is the mental capacity; the want to push themselves more and understand that you’re never the finished article.

“Some of the guys are physically very good - Conor Meyler is exceptional physically, Darren McCurry as well. Then you have Mattie there who works so hard at improving his skill level, and at developing his game and studying the opposition.

“The injury he sustained [against Derrygonnelly in an Ulster Club Championship game last November], a mid-belly tendon avulsion, that’s a tough one.

“In rugby, hamstring tendon avulsions are common enough but they tend to happen at the base of a ruck and usually detach quite high up into the hamstring where it meets the glute.

“They’re relatively easy to fix from a surgical point of view, they just pull that tendon back up, bolt it back in again and off you go. I make it sound like that’s a day procedure, which obviously it’s not.

“But for Mattie, it was mid-belly – that’s like taking two ends and tying them back together in the middle. It’s not an easy thing to get back from, and that shows the mental strength he has.”

Were the Ulster Championship ready to launch into action, Donnelly would have been available for selection against Donegal next weekend. But there will be no trip to Ballybofey for Tyrone, not in the short-term anyway.

October is the very best anybody can hope for now and, even then, it remains anything but certain. From his Belfast base, Davis is doing all he can to ensure the players are where they need to be, and that they’re ready to go when the green light flashes.

“They’re on block two of their programmes right now, they can work away in their individual capacities as long as this lockdown situation continues.

"The programmes we’ve developed for them to work on are a mix of strengthening work and runs which are very specific to the speeds they regularly reach during a match.

"From our monitoring, we know how many times on average in a game they will sprint to a certain speed so the aim, where possible, is to get the players to replicate these in their home training, and then we’re able to record all that information.

"Everything is done on a player by player basis. When lockdown was first announced a few guys took a break, and that’s fine because we’d been working really hard up to that point. Others have been injured, or are working back from injury, so their rehabilitation programme will be specific to them.

"You also have to remember that they all have their own different individual domestic circumstances at the minute. There are limitations in that and you have to work around them, but we’re in touch every day and I’ve said to them that no matter what, day or night, give me a shout if there are any questions or issues.

“At times like this, communication is key. You just have to make it work.”