If, like thousands of GAA players, you'll be wearing a gumshield for the first time this season, the custom-fit product supplied by Impact Gumshields is a good place to start.
This season, for the first time over 20 years as a Gaelic Football player, I was forced to look long and hard at myself in the mirror and change a fundamental aspect of the way I played the game.
What’s that, you ask? Refrain from trying to kick with a left foot that’s purely for standing on? Go flat out for
every single punishing sprint at the end of every training session? Resist the urge for a few pints three weeks before a Championship game (for the uninformed, beer bans tend to be quite lengthy in club GAA… and generally for a good reason)?
No, although all three suggestions above are something I should really be practising in any case, they don’t reflect the biggest change I had to make ahead of this season, when, by dint of GAA rules, I was obliged to wear a gumshield for the first time, as were the thousands of players who – I have no actual evidence but I also have no doubt – had never done so in their GAA careers to date.
It was an eminently sensible decision by the GAA to make the wearing of gumshields by all players mandatory, of course. Gaelic Football by its very nature is an extremely physical sport and there is enough anecdotal evidence of ridiculously high dental bills and players searching for lost teeth on GAA fields throughout the country to make it something of a no-brainer.
It should be added that plenty of sane players have worn gumshields to protect their gnashers since they were kids, but there was a significant percentage of players, myself included, who didn’t have to wear one so didn’t bother, despite the potential risks being visible all around.
Having realised that I was going to have wear a gumshield, I figured I might as well do it right and get a proper one fitted and, thanks to my recollection of a couple of hilarious viral clips featuring Leinster and Ireland rugby star Ian Madigan and All-Ireland winning Dublin corner back Johnny Cooper that we featured on the site last year (see both below), I got in touch with James Murphy of Impact Gumshields to see if he could sort me out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ0BkQCyQTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3nr-xABeqM
Fair play to him, James came into the office and was happy to help me through the process of moulding my own gumshield – which is described in detailed steps, complete with a YouTube tutorial video
over here – all of which took about five minutes from start to finish.
Three days later, my new blue and white (the colours of my beloved Kiltimagh GAA club) custom-fit gumshield had arrived back in the office ready for me to try on for size and after freaking out my work colleagues by leaving it on for a good half an hour in the office as soon as I got my hands on it, the acid test came on the training pitch a few days later.
It came through that test with flying colours and I’ve worn it for three matches since with no difficulties whatsoever. As soon as I got over the strange sensation of wearing it in a match for the first time, I soon began to forget that I was wearing one at all, as it fit perfectly, it was comfortable and, to allay the fears I and many of my teammates had before putting on a gumshield, it had no effect whatsoever on my breathing patterns throughout a game.
Despite the rules having been enforced from the start of the season, I have come across players still on the lookout for a decent gumshield and Impact Gumshields provide a dentist-quality product without a customer actually having to go to the dentist in the first place.
Granted, having to remove the gumshield when you’re bawling your teammates out of it and don’t want to sound like Chewbacca from Star Wars takes a bit of getting used to, but for the safety and security of a set of teeth that have been left dangerously exposed on the playing field for over two decades, it’s well worth it.
Just ask
this guy.
To order your gumshield and for more information on Impact Gumshields and for their special offers for clubs and schools requiring bulk orders, you can visit their website here.
