Athlone brothers playing their part in Irish rugby success story

When Ireland face Wales in Cardiff on Saturday aiming to take another step towards retaining their Six Nations crown - and possibly winning the Grand Slam – Athlone’s involvement won’t be confined to the exploits of Robbie Henshaw. Athlone brothers Keith and Robbie Fox will also once again play an important role with the squad.

Keith has been working as a physiotherapist with the Ireland rugby squad for several years, and he was on duty in the last two Rugby World Cups (Japan in 2019 and France in 2023). Robbie is a massage therapist with the Ireland squad, a role he also carries out with Connacht.

Closer to home, Cornamagh natives Keith and Robbie work in Action Physio, a chartered physiotherapy and sports injury clinic based in Blyry Business Park, Athlone. The manager of the clinic is another brother, Alan, and their mother Pat worked in the business for many years.

Injuries are, of course, part and parcel of playing sport at any level, and Robbie says it gives everyone in Action Physio a huge sense of satisfaction to see people overcoming injury setbacks in order to pursue their sporting dreams.

“It gives us a great sense of pride to see people being able to get back on the pitch performing well and competing at the level they want to,” he said.

Although Action Physio is well known to many sports people in the Athlone area and indeed across the Midlands, Robbie feels the clinic now attracts a much wider clientele.

“I think the clinic has evolved into a physiotherapy practice for the whole community, not just for sports people,” Robbie said.

Robbie points out that the experience gained from working with Connacht and Ireland over the years has enabled Keith and himself to “bring back some of the practices from the professional side of things and incorporate them into the clinic”.

“We have seen how high performance teams operate and we try to have a high performance clinic ourselves,” he said.

“Our main objective is to always have good physios - that is the base of the clinic. If you have good physios, the clinic will be busy and will do well,” he added.

Action Physio offers a comprehensive service in dealing with such issues as occupational injuries, the effects of road traffic accidents, muscle tears and arthritis.

“People now have a greater understanding of what a physio does and they use such services more. It’s not just for sports people,” said Robbie. “We see young kids who might have growing pains, people who suffer everyday accidents and things like back pain and slips and falls, and older people with mobility issues. We try to guide them with programmes to give them more strength and mobility so that they can go about their day to day activities with less pain and more freedom,” he said.

“It has really evolved over the past five or six years. The knowledge of physios has grown and there is a bigger push towards going to the physio first rather than going straight to a GP. It has opened us up to a much wider cohort of people.”

The fact that far more older people now lead active lifestyles and are engaged in activities such as hiking and competitive running has also caused a greater demand for physiotherapy services.

“There is a real push in promoting more activity for older age groups. John Gilligan in JG Elite (a neighbouring business also operating in Blyry) does a seniors’ fitness class and some of the classes the Regional Sports Centre have are also geared towards older people,” remarked Robbie.

“When people push themselves to do more strenuous exercise, then you can get people breaking down a bit and hopefully we’re there to help out if these things happen. People are definitely more active and we see a massive range of ages coming into the clinic now,” he continued.

Action Physio was one of the sponsors in the Westmeath Independent Community & Sports Awards held last September. Hailing from what he admits is “a big sporting family”, Robbie said it was “a privilege” for Action Physio to be involved with the awards.

Alan and Robbie have both enjoyed football success with Garrycastle GAA club over the years, as has one of their colleagues in the practice, James Sheerin, a native of Baltinglass in Wicklow.