#5 Heads Up - Interview with Kat Merchant

Episode 5: Ed Daly speaks to the legendary England women's team winger 'Kat' (Katherine) Merchant. Kat has had an incredible career playing both 15s and 7s women's rugby for her country and Worcester. Achieving her first cap for England at 19. As part of her incredible 9-year term with England, she played in the 2010 and 2014 Rugby World Cups. 

In this episode, Kat speaks honestly about her career in the sport, level of play, and why it all came to an end due to concussion injuries. Kat shares an athlete's perspective on suffering concussions and dealing with their invisible nature and the variety of subtle and obvious symptoms that can occur briefly and longer-term. Kat speaks on the importance of awareness, proper managment and rest to save the players and the game. 

About the podcast:
The Heads-Up Podcast are a series of interviews with ex-professional male rugby players, elite female players and coaches about concussion in the sport. The podcasts discuss their early careers and very open commentary about the realities of professional rugby. Heads-Up discusses insights into injury (specifically concussion), how they managed then and how they continue to manage with life after a professional career. The players offer insights into the culture around the game, their concussion experiences and their observations on player welfare, protective equipment and law changes to the game.  

About Ed Daly:
Ed Daly has over thirteen years of experience in sports coach education and more than five years of lecturing experience in third-level institutes. Ed is currently a PhD researcher focused on investigating concussion identification, concussion management and concussion reduction strategies.

Ed is an active PhD research scientist (Oxford Brookes University) specializing in concussion education, managing athlete workload, objective concussion diagnosis and post-concussion management. Currently developing research for the Irish Concussion Research Centre (ICRC) based in GMIT.

Ed is a lecture in Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) in the area of Sport & Exercise Science within the School of Science & Computing. Programme coordinator for MSc (strength & conditioning).

Before moving to a career in lecturing, Ed worked in professional sports and spent over ten years as a coach with Munster Rugby, coaching age-grade players on the professional player development pathway and in injury incidence reduction via workload management (specializing in the area of strength & conditioning).

Contact Details:
Ed Daly
Email: Ed.Daly@gmit.ie

Published by:
Emma.Finnegan
Email: Emma.Finnegan@gmit.ie