SAOIRSE NOONAN HAS fit quite a lot in to her 21 years so far.
The Cork dual star turns the landmark age over the next few days, and will likely celebrate the milestone birthday at her new office where she provides one-on-one training for kids.
Noonan’s idea for her unique coaching venture came at the start of lockdown when she was out training with her father, her brother and her sister. Having worked on various different Gaelic football and soccer camps over the past few summers, she feared a complete blackout this year due to the Covid-19 crisis — and took it upon herself to think outside the box.
“I just said, ‘Look, this would be something for me give back and bring a few kids out for soccer, GAA or whatever,’” she told The42 last week, stressing the importance of giving back after all that sport has given her so far.
“I have free time now that didn’t have before, and probably won’t have again for a long time. I’ve been doing it now for four or five weeks. Every week seems to be busier.
“Every week, I’ve been booked out completely, taking extra slots and doing extra sessions. There’s roughly 30, 40 kids, at least, in every week so it’s fairly manic.”
Manic, but the ideal job as she coaches Gaelic football or soccer, or both if that’s what the child wants. How much she enjoys it shines through with every word.
But it’s not something she ever really envisaged. It all just fell into place.
“I swore I’d never see myself as a coach,” Noonan concedes, though she is Garda vetted and has her FAI National D coaching licence. “I used to do the camps because I enjoy being around kids and it was handy enough, getting it done in the morning and having a decent job while trying to train nearly full-time.
“At the moment in Cork especially there’s only a couple of coaches I know who do soccer sessions and I don’t know any that do GAA sessions. Obviously playing with the Cork senior ladies, they put it up on their platforms on social media, they’ve been helping me out.
“It’s just took off incredibly, everyone seems to be enjoying it anyway. It’s ideal for me because going back to training now, I can still train in the evenings and work in the mornings. So, happy out.”
Each slot is roughly 50 minutes long — a five-minute warm-up, five-minute cool-down and 40 minutes of technical work, honing skills and working on drills — and it’s €20 per child.
So heartwarming getting such kind messages from parents, every kid that has came to a session has come back for at least one more. The response has been amazing.
— Saoirse Noonan (@saoirse_noonan) June 16, 2020
Thank you 🙌🏽 pic.twitter.com/MiP0EhZefu
Sessions can be one-on-one or in small groups, adhering to social distancing guidelines, with the age range typically eight to 16. It can be strange at times, she agrees, given that some of the kids coming in and looking up to her aren’t exactly much younger than her.
“Turning 21 next week, I think people think I’m older than I am,” the CIT Marketing student laughs. “I had four girls there today, this is their fourth session with me. They’re fantastic. They’re 15 so they’re only a couple years younger than me.
They’re saying, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re only 20.’ But when I was 16, 17, playing on the minor team and I was looking up to [Eimear] Scally or Val [Mulcahy], and if they were going out doing a session, I’d love nothing more than to go out with them.
“I’m really enjoying it at the moment.”
Lockdown, in general, has been an eye-opener for the Cork senior ladies football and Cork City soccer star. As her own team training sessions return along with some semblance of normality, Noonan is adjusting to reality once again.
The break was certainly welcomed, and it’s one she learned plenty from.
“Something I’ve always kind of struggled on is my fitness, and it’s something I’ve always really wanted to improve on,” she says, explaining how her hectic schedule balancing both codes never really afforded her the chance to work on her fitness between games and adequate rest either side of sessions.
“In the lockdown, I took it upon myself to just go run and run and run. I had nothing to recover for, I know my own body well enough at this stage. I was just trying to get out every morning; get up and get it done, and then do a little bit in the evening if I could.
I nearly enjoyed it too much, I’d say, focusing on myself. Going back into a routine and having to be at training in the evenings has nearly been a bit difficult. I was training in the morning myself, now I have to wait to train in the evenings and try look after my body so it’s right for the evening session to get the best out of yourself.
“I just really used this time to focus on myself and do things for me instead of looking out for other players, because obviously you want to perform best for your coaches on the day and you want to be in top condition for a match.”
Although it may be difficult to balance both at times, Noonan absolutely adores it. It’s all she’s ever known, and it’s all she ever plans on knowing.
Both codes will be played once again this year — she’ll line out in the All-Ireland senior championship and the Women’s National League — with no decisions being made yet.
“No, that will never be made,” the Nemo Rangers forward interjects. “Ah, they’ve been fantastic. They’re all watching my workload now going back.
“When we go back into GAA, I’m sure they’ll be keeping an eye on the soccer. We’re back with Cork City now and they’re keeping an eye with Nemo. They’re all very good and understanding.
There’s other dual players doing different sports, so I’m the exact same as them. I think they understand I want to play both, I’m going to play both and if one of them tells me I can’t, then it’ll probably be more or less their sport that I’ll give up.
“I think it’s only fair. I’m playing soccer and football. Plenty of girls are playing camogie and football, hockey and football, soccer and hockey, so it’s good and I’m lucky with the coaches I have at the moment that I’m still able to do it. As I said, I’ll keep going for as long as I can.”
After a cruciate ligament knee injury in late 2018, Noonan is back to her best and ready to get back on the pitch next month with Cork City.
With the ladies football championship draws made last week, she’s relishing facing Munster rivals Kerry and Cavan when that rolls around in October. “It’s going to be whoever wants it more on the day when it comes down to it,” she reckons, given the short turnaround.
It’s going to be a quick championship, exciting, really competitive and the standard will be high because everyone is eager to get back and everyone wants to get their hands on the All-Ireland.”
That’s a huge personal goal of hers, she makes no secret of that. As is making the Irish women’s national senior team after a successful underage career. But several opportunities have cropped up over the last year or so that have turned her head further afield.
She spent a short period at Women’s Super League [WSL] side Bristol City, while also travelling to America to suss out soccer scholarships before attending Australian Football League Women’s [AFLW] trials Down Under.
Her old Ireland U17 manager Dave Bell organised that Noonan, Tiegan Ruddy and Heather Payne would get the taste of a professional set-up at Bristol though his connection with former boss Willie Kirk.
“It was unbelievable,” she smiles. “It kind of came out of the blue. No one knew if we were going or not. One day we just got a text being like ‘Fly on Saturday, you’re going over there until Wednesday — come.’
“It was either you get on the plane or you don’t get on plane. I think we were all a bit nervous going over there, not knowing what it was like, not knowing what was going happen. I just went for the experience and definitely, it was great.”
You can almost still hear the disbelief in her voice as she details the experience. How they were given gear bags full of the necessary gear for training sessions on day one, how they were collected from their hotel in the mornings and went straight to the grounds and how a typical day went there.
Gym session in the morning, lunch, a technical session full of ball work, dinner and then the evening to yourself. The dream.
“Some girls would be doing college work, some girls were actually working, which was a bit of a shock to me because you’re playing at such a high level and there’s such high demands; you’re going to college and trying to work as well…
As they said, we’re doing the exact same here, just they do it during the day, we do it at night time. It was different, but to be fair over here, especially with GAA, the standard is incredibly high. You train like a professional. You do nearly everything that they do over there, just in your own time.
“It was an unbelievable experience and the couple of days over there were phenomenal. We got to play a little practice match with them, got to to be involved in the training sessions. They were short and intense. But you’re there all day, it’s like a full time job.
“It is fairly hectic but it’s quite a nice lifestyle.”
The insight was similar in Australia and America, and they were more opportunities that certainly gave her lots of food for thought.
“All places are just so different,” she nods. “The lifestyle is just incredible. When I was in America, it was state-of-the-art accommodation, swimming pools, you could get everything you would need. All the food you want paid for, like they really do treat you so well.
“These opportunities, I’ll never turn down like. They’re opportunities of a lifetime and even though I haven’t took one up yet, I took the opportunity to go look at it and at least I can say, ‘I went and looked at it… America wasn’t for me, we don’t know about Australia, we’ll see.’
I’m definitely not someone that’s going to say, ‘Ah yeah, I’ll go somewhere for four years and that’s it.’ I’m happy I was able to get insight into all these places and all the opportunities out there. I’ll always be so grateful I was given the option to take on these opportunities. I’ve been really lucky, to be honest.”
She’ll take it all in her stride and deal with any opportunities or challenges as she comes to them. Step by step, day by day.
And she’s certainly happy enough in Cork at the minute, it seems.
“Yep, hanging on til we win the All-Ireland anyway,” she concludes with a smile. “Hopefully.”
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