Former top junior cyclist Eoghan McLaughlin has spoken of the huge transition, and body transformation, required to switch from cycling to Gaelic football, which he now plays for the University of Limerick, his Westport club and for the Mayo senior team.
McLaughlin said when he was making the transition from cycling to football the impact of the training took him by surprise and it was a year before he even got used to the nature of the training, though he explains cycling as a junior was still more time consuming that playing football at senior intercounty level.
Thinking back to those early days when he switch from lycra to O'Neill's kit, McLaughlin - a 'young player of the year' nominee in 2021 - said he was unable to walk after the session and had hour-long baths with Epsom salts in an effort to ease his aching muscles.
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However, he has since gained 20kg - up from 64kg in his Junior Tour of Ireland days and now weighing in at 84kg - and has become an established top player on the Mayo scene. He is a member of a senior football panel which continues to dream of an All Ireland win.
Even now when he does some training for football on a stationery bike, he wonders how he used to be a cyclist as he finds it very difficult given the development of a different set of muscles for his football career.
“If I had to do a bike session one evening because I wasn’t on the pitch, for example, I’d be there on the bike for 40 minutes and I’d be dogging myself and I’d be like, ‘How did I ever do this at all?’" he told Donnchadh Boyle of the Irish Independent.
“It’s funny, just a complete mindset change altogether. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m just inside on a stationary bike, it’s definitely a different experience outdoors.”
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Eoghan McLaughlin impressed with his speed and skill for @MayoGAA in the 2020 SFC season, earning the @westportgaa club man a nomination for the 2020 @PwCIreland GAA/@gaelicplayers Young Player of the Year in Football Award! ✨
The #PwCAllStars Awards take place this Saturday. pic.twitter.com/UthiNJL0mY— The GAA (@officialgaa) February 17, 2021
However, when he compares the time he used to put into cycling as a junior with the time commitment required for his footballing career at the top of the sport, he's clear on what took more time.
“It’s funny, everyone always says that playing football for an inter-county is very time-consuming, and it is very time-consuming, but when I was cycling, it was way more time-consuming,” he said. “On a weekend then when you don’t have school, you could be on the bike for five or six hours, it was madness. And sure your whole day would be gone then.”
When he raced he won a stage of the Gorey Three Day back in 2016 and also took a win in Belgium when he went to race there, among many other victories. Having played some football before he focused exclusively on cycling, McLaughlin began to play ball again for his school Rice College in Westport.
And despite being away from the game for over four years, and making international selection as a cyclist, he impressed on the field playing for his school and gradually swapped two wheels for a football.
He has since become a regular for the Mayo senior footballers and at the weekend he was one of the key players that delivered Mayo their first Connacht title win since 2015. They beat Galway in the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship final at Pearse Stadium in Galway after McLaughlin felled Galway’s Sean Kelly at the end of the game, taking his goal opportunity from him.
The Mayo fans voted McLaughlin man of the match in an online poll; the Westport 20-year-old securing 32 per cent of the vote, almost double the next most popular player.
