Ireland’s secret for keeping players healthy is PSG’s fitness guru – and Eidur Gudjohnsen’s uncle

He is the uncle of Chelsea legend Eidur Gudjohnsen and has worked with some of the biggest names in sport including Premier League footballers, NBA stars and Olympic medal-winning athletes: but now, Einar Einarsson is Ireland’s secret weapon in their attempt to win the Rugby World Cup.

A distinguished athlete himself – he represented Iceland at table tennis, played football in his country’s Premier League, and also basketball and handball to a high level – Einarsson has spent over 30 years working as a physical therapist in a variety of elite sporting environments.

And his recruitment by the Irish Rugby Football Union in January after nine years at the world-renowned Aspetar sports medicine hospital in Doha, Qatar (where he worked with Premier League players including Didier Drogba, the NBA’s Joel Embiid, and players from French club Paris St-Germain) has been seen as pivotal to bolstering Ireland’s hopes of success in France.

Einarsson now works as Ireland’s ‘specialist rehabilitation physiotherapist’ anchoring a fully integrated high-performance programme, bringing his expertise to coordinate tailored recovery plans working with the national team support staff.

He has been able to share the experience of watching his nephew Gudjohnsen, the son of his sister Olof, recover from a career-threatening injury when he was playing for Iceland in a youth international against Ireland and he shattered his ankle.

“Knowing him helped me in my job because you get an insight into professional sports,” Einarsson told Telegraph Sport, in his first interview since joining the IRFU.

“When he was dealing with his biggest injury, I was a very young physio so I don’t think I was a lot of help then, just family support. But I learnt a lot from it. He overcame a really difficult problem and became a very good professional footballer.

“So, I used his example when I am helping players who are dealing with injuries that threaten their careers, because his story ended really well. He was away for almost two years but then came back.

“The key is the desire of the player to get back. What I tell them is that there is always someone who can help them. They just need to find that person.”

The results so far this year have been impressive: Ireland’s conditioning has been a stand-out feature of their World Cup campaign that has included victories over South Africa and Scotland.

Tournament statistics show that Ireland have used only 17 players who have played more than 100 minutes during the four World Cup pool matches, a figure lower than any other team. New Zealand, their quarter-final opponents, have the second highest, with a total of 26 players.

But, significantly, Einarsson’s expertise in injury rehabilitation – including movement analysis and the use of wireless electromyography to record the activity of individual muscles – has also enabled key players such as Johnny Sexton, Dan Sheehan and Jamison Gibson-Park to return from injuries ahead of conventional targets this year.

In stark comparison to previous World Cup campaigns – in 2015 Ireland entered their quarter-final without key players Paul O’Connell, Sexton, Peter O’Mahony and Jared Payne, and Tommy Bowe sustained a shin injury early in the 43-20 defeat by Argentina – head coach Andy Farrell has been able to name a full-strength starting XV to face the All Blacks on Saturday.

Mack Hansen, the Ireland wing, retains his place despite not having been able to train this week because of a calf injury sustained in the victory over Scotland. Only James Ryan and Robbie Henshaw, who were likely to start on the bench, were declared unavailable because of wrist and hamstring injuries, while Ryan and Henshaw, whose World Cup was feared over just over a week ago when he was ruled out of the victory over Scotland, are both expected to be fit for the semi-finals if Ireland make it.

Cian Healy, the Ireland prop, who was ruled out of the tournament on the eve of their World Cup squad announcement in August after suffering a calf injury in the warm-up match against Samoa, is also fit again ahead of schedule and ready to be called up if Ireland require an injury replacement.

Einarsson, who is quick to emphasise that the rehabilitation, strength, and conditioning work is a collective effort by the IRFU’s high-performance programme, says the results have been due to a combination of injury prevention training and the specialised use of technology to assist both diagnosis and recovery.

“When we do the work here, even though I might execute the training, I am just representing the whole medical team and we work in collaboration to get the best results,” he said.

“Sometimes there is a pressure in the time-line, when we need to get the player back faster, so we sit down and discuss what is a reasonable return to training and then work backwards and create a plan.

“Sometimes we have to work harder – two sessions a day, which we call microdosing. Another key to success is working with the player. They are professional athletes who know their bodies very well. What they ask is, ‘How much can I load?’. The interaction comes about deciding how much to load and how much to rest.

“The mentality of these rugby players is great. It’s great to work with them as I also think they fit my mentality. I’m from Iceland. So culturally, that’s part of it, too.

“They are more than happy to work hard in the weights room and they are tough, which is important because when we do rehab we need them to train harder because I want them to come back stronger and more fit.”

‘To have a full squad so deep into the tournament was impressive’

The use of wireless sensors allows Einarsson to measure what a player’s muscles are doing so he can create the best exercises for the specific injury.

“Electromyography is when we take signals from the muscle, so I can see what is happening. If I ask a player to do a squat or a jump, for example, then I will see what the output is of my intervention.

“It is called neuro flow. At the start often the exercises are not hard but the output that I am reading is actually representing what the brain wants to do. So I’m restoring that connection from the brain to the muscle by doing the same few exercises repeatedly. That connection gets better because you’re sending the signal to activate the muscle.

“If a player has injured a hamstring, I can measure the force output, but that is a global measure. The hamstring is made up of a number of muscles and the brain is so smart it can pick the healthy one for the task.

“That is what can happen in the rehab scenario. But if we have the sensor on, I can make sure we are training the muscle that got injured.

“The lateral hamstring works harder at high speed so we have to find ways to challenge them in the weights room and also with a lot of resistance running, pulling a sled or with me pulling them back with a band.

“What I do is train the nervous system with interactive bio-feedback from the electromyography sensors, which means you have some idea of what is happening while the player is doing the training.”

Einarsson says he was first attracted to working with Irish rugby through his friendship with Phil Glasgow, the IRFU’s head of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, who also worked at Aspetar.

“Before the Scotland game we were coming in with a full squad, which to be so deep into the tournament was impressive,” he said.

“We have picked up some injuries during that week and after that game, and I would still say we are on a very good, solid base.

“I have worked in sport for many years and you know when you have a winning team and it is there. That does not mean Ireland will win the World Cup. But I can promise you one thing: they will compete and they will compete until the game is over. They work so well together.”