‘Johnny Concrete’ cements new role as Gunner
Former Connacht and Irish international rugby star Johnny O’Connor faces a hectic week as he moves his young family over to London in order to take up a strength and conditioning role with English Premier League club Arsenal FC for the coming year.
The 33-year old flanker, who retired from Connacht Rugby at the end of last season, has spent the last five weeks bedding in at the club’s training facility in Hertfordshire before completing a permanent move next week.
It is a hectic few days for the O’Connor household as Johnny’s wife, Louise, only gave birth to their second son, James, on Tuesday. Louise, James, and two year old Jack will join Johnny at their new home in Richmond.
O’Connor studied for a degree in strength and conditioning at the Limerick Institute of Technology during his playing days and has been invited to join the London club’s backroom staff by Des Ryan, the Arsenal Academy Head of Sports Medicine and Athletic Development.
Des previously worked with Johnny at the Sportsground and he has also invited former Munster star Jerry Flannery to join Arsenal as an intern for a year.
“I have spent five weeks over there already, prior to bringing over the family, and I am pretty grateful for this opportunity to work in strength and conditioning at such a leading club, now that my own playing days have come to an end,” O’Connor told the Galway City Tribune yesterday.
“My role will be to try to improve the capacity and fitness of the players, to make them run faster. Obviously, the won’t take the same hits and knocks, or have the same physical contact, as rugby players, but a lot of field sports are similar and this is a great chance for me to gain valuable experience in sports medicine.”
O’Connor said he would be working on a daily basis with members of the Youth Academy, aged 15 to 21, at the club’s London Colny training ground near St Alban’s.
“Already, I’ve seen that I will be working with fantastic young athletes, who are going to do well in sport, but we also feel that they can improve,” he said.
O’Connor already has experience of living in London, thanks to his experience with Wasps, where he won two Heineken Cups, two English Premierships, and a Powergen Cup, before returning to his native Connacht.
For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune