Ryan Hannon, First Team Performance Coach at Bray Wanderers provides outlines his career in strength and conditioning along with his experience of studying with Setanta College in our latest article below. 

From Player to Coach

As a former underage LOI player, Ryan first became interested in the world of S&C through his own training experiences. 

“I had a couple of good seasons with Ardmore and then the opportunity to play in the underage League of Ireland came with UCD U17’s and then the progression to UCD U19’s, this is when I started to get a passion for strength and conditioning learning how my body works and how being in the gym can help improve my performance on the pitch.

I’m fascinated with how the human body works and how practitioners can help athletes perform in their respective sports. It’s been something I have thought about for a while, taking the plunge to do a degree in strength and conditioning, having seen some of the lads who have done so and gone into full-time elite sports set ups.”

When it came to securing a role, Ryan’s time as a player for UCD proved beneficial due to the connections he had made at the club. 

“The manager at Bray Wanderers at the time, Ian Ryan, was my U19s manager at UCD and the Head of Football at Bray Wanderers Pat Devlin was the man who brought me to UCD as a player, so I just reached out to them both to see could I offer my services as a performance coach to try help the team and the club.

I would like to think they both knew what I was like as a person and my work ethic that could help the team and try to keep the lads as fresh as possible, thankfully they both wanted me on board. I’ think it helped that I know the demands of the league and how quick of a turnover it can be game-wise sometimes having a game Friday and then another on Monday night.”

Role at Bray Wanderers

“My role as a Performance coach would be looking after our GPS units setting targets for each training day (Monday-Wednesday- Thursday) Total distance, HML Distance, High0speed running, Max Speed to name a few metrics. Each week will be differ depending on what that week has in store game-wise. Return to play for players coming back to training we would ease them back in to training before going into a full session.” 

Player welfare is also a critical part of Hannon’s role. He monitors players’ fatigue and liaises with the manager to adjust workloads. “I’m also there to be the middle man if a player looks fatigued for example to tell the manager can we use this player as a bounce player or maybe leave them off for a certain part of the session so we can try to limit injury or just for player welfare, which works really well with our set up the trust in each other to be able to do that.” 

Managing the Weekly Schedule

“We train Monday, so I get there about an hour before, set up the GPS, and have everything laid out for the lads ready to go out on the pitch. Monday is our ‘Work’ session – tighter areas focusing on acceleration, deceleration, and getting after the ball.” 

Wednesday we will taper the session in terms of loading, areas will be bigger to get some high speed running exposure, max speeds after our ramp warm up before the lads go into passing, during the session we can monitor the session in terms of if targets are being hit or if we are over doing or under doing it. 

Thursday session is MD -1 which is to get that buzz before match day with the lads. Some reaction games, relay races, rondos and then into some shape work.

Friday is match day, I’ve clocked up some km this season being to Kerry twice, Cork and Cobh twice and Finn Harps in Donegal twice. This is a working day for us as a group so we know what has to be done as a coaching staff and a group collectively, we’re prepared and ready to go.” 

Coaching Philosophy

Ryan’s coaching philosophy is rooted in respect. “My coaching philosophy is really simple I’m big on show respect get respect. Leave the ego at home we’re all here for the same reason and that’s to get better every day. I want to try to have an impact on as many players as I can to help them get to where they want to get to. The environment we all want to work in is positive especially if we want to succeed.” 

Studying with Setanta

Ryan decided to study for a BSc in Strength and Conditioning with Setanta College in order to progress his career. “I applied for the BSc in Strength and Conditioning with Setanta College when I did a bit of research and seeing the background of some of past students and lectures that have been through Setanta, it was a no-brainer. I felt it was the right fit for me and would be the place to help me progress in my career, with the practical aspect of being able to do it online along with working full-time and put my learning into practice on the football pitch.” 

Ryan highlighted the practical workshops offered as a beneficial part of studying with Setanta. “I think the frequency of the workshops for each module has been really helpful and the mixing with other students especially in all the different sports at the workshops. Learning different ways of coaching from other people has been a big help as well to add to my craft as a practitioner. I’ve been able to apply some of my learnings with Bray which has been a great to help with the continuous learning.” 

Balancing work and studying can be challenging, but Ryan’s organisational skills help him stay on top of it. “It can be a challenge at times but to be fair I’m a very organised person,” Ryan shared. “I would be lost with the app Notion that helps me plan my week out so I know exactly what I have to do for the week and when it needs to be done for. Having 2 games in a week can be tough to balance with studying due to travel days but I make it work as best as possible.”