Home is where the heart is for prodigal son Brian Glynn

​Laois footballer, Brian Glynn, talks to GAA.ie

By John Harrington

When Brian Glynn strapped up Trent Alexander-Arnold’s foot before a Merseyside derby between the Liverpool and Everton U-16s four years ago, it’s hard to know which of the following two scenarios would have been deemed less likely at the time.

That Alexander-Arnold would part of the England senior international squad at the 2018 World Cup, or that Glynn would be a member of a Laois panel preparing for the 2018 Leinster Senior Football Final.

Perhaps Glynn would have been the longer odds bet, because his commitment to putting his career as a physiotherapist first meant that a return home to Laois wasn’t on the horizon anytime soon back then.

He had kept his eye in by commuting at weekends to play club football with Portlaoise for seven years in a row, but in his final year in England he didn’t play any football at all.

It’s a testament to the 29-year-old's natural ability so that when he returned home to Ireland for good at the end of last year he was called up to the Laois panel and immediately looked comfortable at the highest level.

“I'm really grateful for the management team to give me a call and ask me would I come in and see how I would get on initially and, touch wood, it has been great and I've really enjoyed it up to now,” Glynn told GAA.ie.

“I went (to England) eight years ago and studied in Newcastle, studied physiotherapy over there.

“I would have stayed and worked over there. I did come over and back for the seven years playing football with Portlaoise, really enjoyed that and very privileged to get that opportunity.

“I was based in Liverpool Royal Hospital and then worked with Liverpool Football Club, predominantly with their academy teams and then most recently, I came back from Sunderland Football Club, where I was working as the Head of the Academy there.

“Really enjoyable times and obviously when you're involved in those kind of environments and those sporting fields, you do have little bit of an itch (to play sport).

“It's different being a physio and you can never get those years back playing, so that's probably what I appreciate the most now is, after a little bit away from the game, being back and just playing football.

“I've invested a lot in my career up to this point and it's just nice to enjoy the other side of it, that social and sport side of it. That's always been important to me.”

Glynn’s call up to the Laois panel despite such a long exile in England wasn’t all that surprising because he excelled for Portlaoise in the club championship during those years commuting over and back for matches.

It would have been a lot easier to play at a lower level over in England, but he pushed himself to maintain high personal standards.

“I would make the commitment to come back to Portlaoise and train,” he said. “Then midweek obviously when you were in England, you'd have to train on your own and lamp posts are your friends amazingly, they can hand-pass a ball back if you're quick enough.

“There was a university team and there was the start of a club team in Newcastle. But in Liverpool previously there was a very good team. Obviously, John Moores and University of Hope and John Mitchels, being a team I think anyone in GAA circles would know.

“They were fantastic to me and really good guys. Actually a really nice setup, one of the finest pitches I've played on over there. They were nice to let me train with them and then come back and play with Portlaoise.”

Having worked with both Liverpool and Sunderland football clubs, Glynn is well-versed in the standard of physical preparation in a professional sport.

Since he’s joined up with the Laois panel under manager John Sugrue, he believes that inter-county Gaelic Games compares well in terms of how well-prepared teams now are.

“The sports science of it is adapting and coming along very, very highly here in Gaelic Games,” he said.

“That's obviously a big part of professional sport. Since I've been away, the sort of recent strength and conditioning work is very similar to what teams are doing at a high level professional setup. That side of it, the sport science, sport medicine is certainly improving.

“I've been very impressed since I've come back with regards coaching and the level of knowledge coaches have playing Gaelic games and the tactics, they're very, very important. Similarly professional sport, those things are important as well. There's an awful lot of comparisons definitely yeah.”

No team in Gaelic Games has raised the bar higher than the Dublin footballers, and Glynn is well aware of the scale of the task Laois will be faced with when they play the three-in-a-row All-Ireland Champions in Sunday’s Leinster Final.

But rather than be overawed by their opponents, he believes Laois should learn from what has made Dublin so successful, and then try to emulate them.

“They're a fantastic team and I think they'll get all the accolades and all the credit certainly should go to them because they are certainly appear to be role models both on and off the field and carry themselves very well,” he said.

“I know our group, we just got to focus on ourselves and see if we can try and continue with our own team ethos, try and make people proud in Laois, continue to try and almost be role models for Laois people as well.”