FEATURE ARTICLE: CELEBRATING OUR MEMBERS: SHARON KEARNEY

Celebrating Success: New Zealand Order of Merit

Sharon Kearney

Sharon Kearney has been one of New Zealand’s leading Sports Physiotherapists for decades. This year she was recognised for her contribution to Physiotherapy and Netball by being recognised as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) on the 2020 Queens Birthday Honours List. We caught up with Sharon after the awards.

JL: Congratulations on being recognised on the 2020 Queens Birthday Honours list as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit… How did that come about?

SK: I got an email when I was in self-isolation actually, having just flown back from Europe on a mercy dash home to get away from COVID-19, and there was an email in my inbox. It looked like spam actually, because it has brackets around it, so I ignored it… and then as I was in isolation I thought I better have a look at some emails I received while I was away and I thought ‘oh I better open this’ and that’s when I saw it and I thought Oh my goodness me! The email stated that I had been nominated for a MNZM and would I like to accept essentially.

JL: That’s wonderful

SK: That’s how you find out… and I did hear of someone else who ignored it and didn’t even know he had been nominated because of the way it looks in your inbox, it doesn’t look real, and to me I guess it still doesn’t feel real.

JL: You were nominated by Netball New Zealand?

SK: You don’t know who nominates you. My understanding is that you get nominated but has to be supported by other people, so you don’t actually know who nominates you, you have no idea.

JL: Well in that case it was us…(disclaimer: SEPNZ did not nominate Shaz but we should have). You have been to three Netball World Youth Cups as the NZ Netball U21 Physio, you were the Medical Co-ordinator for Netball New Zealand, you have attended five World Cups and two Commonwealth Games with the Silver Ferns. What was your highlight?

SK: I suppose the ultimate highlight if we are thinking from a performance perspective was the Commonwealth Games Gold Medal Final in New Delhi where we beat Australia in double overtime. That was a pretty outstanding effort, and was a definite performance highlight. I think probably highlights in general terms of my all roles has just been watching players develop and watching how physio can have such an impact in sport. And not just as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, but also from a performance enhancement and injury prevention perspective. This has been my modus operandi from when I first got involved with Netball. That’s the exciting thing. I have just been away with some current U21’s this weekend and working with that age group again and watching how, from a movement perspective, we can educate, we help players grow their physical capability and what a difference we can make. From a physiotherapy perspective we undersell our impact and we need to start celebrating what physiotherapy as a profession can offer and what a difference we can make, especially to the young athletes.

JL: You must have seen a big difference then from the first U21 teams to the current cohort in the ways that they move, having gone through NetballSmart and the groundwork you have been laying with those athletes for a few years as you have been running NetballSmart for a while and looking at how they are moving.. Are you seeing changes in how they are moving, and landing, are they stronger? Do you see those effects coming through?

SK: See that’s a yes and no…Because we are dealing with society where our kids are less physically capable. I’m not sure they explore movement enough in their younger years and society in general is less physically demanding and whereas sport appears to be far more physically demanding than years ago. Sports is generally faster and harder. I recently went and worked with some young year 9 and 10 kids at a Development camp who were physically capable to meet the demands of Netball. So, yes I think at a higher level, as we have worked really hard, and made impact as we work really closely with the players. However at a community level I would say the challenging thing for us is that players are less physically capable than yester year, because of the lifestyles they lead. Then they try and play sport by emulating their role models and play at a really high and physical level However many don’t have the physical capability to do that without exposing themselves to injury risk. NetballSmart roles and our roles within Physiotherapy is really important and needs to be constant and ongoing. We need to engage more with the young athletes, make a difference with these kids and how they move in sport, so they can prevent the injury cascade that some of them end up on.

JL: You are working in private practice, have worked in Netball with the Tactix, the Silver Ferns for a while and I know you are also working with one of the international Delphi groups in Injury Prevention. What else have you got in the pipeline?.

SK: I am really interested in the success rates of injury prevention or injury risk reduction programmes. These programmes are fraught with multitudes of issues (i.e. compliance). What we are seeing at the moment is a lot of research into what the programmes should include but not a lot of research into how they can be implemented successfully and what the important success factors are. I am interested in this from an ACL perspective specifically. If we look at the current ACL research that is coming out at the moment there is a lot about post ACL reconstruction. There is a plethora of it, but there is not a lot of research on how we can implement broad community based programmes that can actually make a difference to ACL injury rate. So, I think I will be pushing a massive rock uphill but I am quite interested in that side of things. How can we show that community based injury prevention programmes can be successful. NetballSmart at the moment, pre-COVID (who knows what is going to happen post-COVID) was beginning to influence a decrease in netball ACL injuries…Who knows what is going to happen post COVID because we will have a lot of kids that have not done a lot and sport is taking off with a hiss and a roar so…its really quite devastating that COVID has impacted so heavily on some of the strategies that we have in place. In addition how are we going to ensure that we can kick-start the momentum again next season? It’s a tough one. At some point, I would like to get into some research, but injury prevention research but that is really hard.

A family affair - Sharon and Kevin with Daughter Ala — all physiotherapists!