Member of the Month Mathew Prior
November 19,
2019 1514 1514 
Hear about Mat's experience working away as the Physio for the Joeys!
1. What was the event and what was your role at the event/trip?
The event was an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup qualifying tournament held in Hanoi, Vietnam; and which was also part of the FIFA Youth World Cup 2021 qualifying process. My role as physio for the Joeys involved not only managing injuries to the players during the competition, but also more importantly implementing injury prevention strategies, such as daily physical and wellness monitoring, injury prevention exercises, and recovery strategies in conjunction with the rest of the sports medicine team, to have as many players out on the pitch and fit to compete as possible.
2. How did you become involved in this opportunity?
I've worked in many different football settings with football previously, with Adelaide United FC, the Pararoos (Australian National Paralympic team), and local NPL football teams; and through these experiences, and working with the FFA previously, was offered the opportunity to become involved with the national team program.
3. What kind of work you did whilst you were working at the event / away with this team, e.g. what was a typical day for you?
A typical day would start with going through daily wellness info provided by players via smartphone app, which tries to flag which players might be having issues, and who we may need to assess further. We also do groin squeeze testing each morning with all players, as part of our prevention strategy for groin injury - which is a big issue in this athlete group. After that, our day would be kept busy with performing treatment with players, preparing for training sessions and games (taping, organising hydration etc), implementing injury prevention exercises as part of warmups, and also assisting with recovery strategies (pool recovery, stretching, massage etc) after training and games - which is a big task when the team play a game every second day. Also on tour, there's always a lot of packing & unpacking kit bags, and a lot time spent on buses traveling to and from the ground!
4. What was a highlight for you?
The big highlight of the trip was a 2-1 win against Vietnam in the last group game, which mean that the team topped their group and qualified for the Asian Cup, which will be held in Bahrain in 2020.
5. Who else did you get to work with?
As well as the coaching staff on tour, the sports medicine team also comprised another physio, a sports doctor, massage therapist and sports scientist - which were a fantastic group to work with, and had huge experience in football to draw on.
6. What is one benefit or one thing you learnt from working at this event?
One big benefit is having the opportunity to work as part of a big, experienced multi-disciplinary team that have worked with national teams right up to the Socceroos, which not only helps the players, but also means that you get to learn a huge amount by seeing really experienced practitioners work day in, day out on tour.