IFDA newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2

IFDA

Newsletter

• EUC 2011• EYUC 2011• Free team Ireland Pullout!

IrelanD 17 GB 15

Volume 4, Issue 2, 7 October 2011

Team IrelanD eUC 2011

CreditsEditor: Liz Schaffalitzky

Layout: Gearoid O Fearghail

Most Photos: Aoife Delany, Sara Hobson

IFDa newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2 page 1 IFDa newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2 page 2

ContentsJunior Women 2011 2by Leah Driscoll

mixed Team 2011 5by Clíodhna Ní Ghiollogháin and Peter Forde

Ireland Open 2011 10By Brian McDevitt, Sam Mehigan and Niall Harbourne

Ireland Women 2011 14by Linda Barry

Junior Open 2011 18by Alan Fitzpatrick

note from the editor Hi and welcome to a Special Edition of the IFDA Newslet-ter. This issue we have decided to forgo are regular items (are they regular if they’ve only been in one edition so far?) to report on the goings on of Team Ireland this sum-mer. With pieces from all 5 teams who competed on grass in July and August, we hope to open up the rest of the community to how the Ireland experience is.

We also learned lessons from our last edition: Less is more! And maybe copy-read a few more times before releasing to the public. I can only apologise for the numerous mis-takes in the last issues, but hey, it was my first day!

I hope you enjoy this issue, special thanks to all contribu-tors, and again Ger for putting everything together for me.

As always, if you have an article you want to see or write, get in touch!

liz

JUnIOr WOmen 2011by Leah Driscoll

Arriving in Wroclaw, Poland for the European Youth Ultimate Championships, we knew the odds were against us. Having never heard of Ul-timate Frisbee 12 months before, we were quite clearly a novice team. Our players’ experience ranged from a year to about seven months, and we were facing teams who had spent far longer than that playing Ultimate. But we had trained too hard and endured far too many wind-and-rain-filled training sessions to let that dampen our spirits.

The tournament started off on a high at the opening ceremony, at which both the Ladies and Open Team could not possibly have been more obnoxiously Irish. We painted our faces, photo bombed other team’s pictures, carried life-size cardboard cut outs of missing players

and screamed and chanted enough for every other nation to realise that Ireland had truly ar-rived. We made ourselves known, I can guaran-tee you that.

Our first match ever as a full team was against Sweden, and our adrenaline was the only thing keeping us awake after a 6.30 am wake up call. We ate a breakfast of aspiring champions, while the other teams stared at our overflowing trays of food in disgust. It was both terrifying and amazing to play our first game in the Olympic Stadium. We worked hard, but still lost 17-0. However, one of the best things about our team was that we never lost our spirit. We left that match with our heads held high and were all the more determined to build on our game.

Back (from left to right): Richard Hobson, Niamh Carey, Jess Mac Sweeney, Anne Leahy (c), Gemma Locke, Caitlin Looney, Aisling McCarthy, Leanne O’Neil, Jen Cassidy, Leah Driscoll, Kate O’ Reagan, Danni O’Shea, Laura-Anne O’Sullivan, Caoimhe Quigley Front: Mairead O’Meara, Elysha McCarthy, Mags Carey, Caroline Sexton, Jenny Murphy, Eimear O’ Reilly.


And build on our game we did. Our next match against Great Britain saw us score our first ever point on an international level. What could possibly have made it better? It was a hammer, thrown by our JTM, Leanne O’ Neill. Our proudest day by far however, was the day of the Czech and Poland match-es: Our team finally began to synchronise and our zone de-fence, quite frankly, kicked ass. We had a close game, but lost 9-12 to the Czechs. Feeling pumped, we headed into our second match of the day, against Poland.

It was brilliant to learn from all of these teams whose experience at times blew us out of the water. However, the feeling of winning a match, the first win ever for the Irish Junior Women’s Team, has no comparison. The way in which we did it was definitely worth remembering: On universe point, Caitlin Looney delivered a

flick huck, and with a spectacular catch from Mairead O’Meara in the end-zone, we had won the game! The pitch was stormed with Irish players. To say mass eu-phoria broke out would be an understatement. It was a mo-ment of Ultimate magic that we will never forget.

Our most heartbreaking match was again, against the Poles, in a tight and painstak-ingly long game of two and a

half hours. To come out of that game without a win was hard. At the same time, we knew we had given it our all and had done our coach-es; Meabh Boylan (who unfortunately couldn’t make it to the tournament), Richard Hobson and Caoimhe Quigley proud. They had put as much blood, sweat and tears into the tournament as we had, and without them, there wouldn’t have been an Irish Junior Womens Team.

The support we re-ceived from home was brilliant. Each night, the girls would gather in the kitchen for a team meeting (much to the Open team’s amuse-ment, the sandwich making jokes were end-less) and Caoimhe and Hobs would read out the huge amounts of texts, emails and Face-book messages wishing us luck and telling us how proud they were. Some of these people we didn’t even know, and I think I can speak for the girls when I say that it was at times like those we felt proud to be representing Ire-land.

On the whole, the tour-nament was a week of various odd chants (H’on Tipp!); highly competitive games of ninja and mineshaft; paddlin’s, big boy (and occasionally big girl) laps; toffee hammers; and most importantly, some great Ultimate. It was an experience that none of us will forget.

Bring on next year!

Caitlin Looney, Mairead O Meara and, Mags Carey try out a zone against Poland (Photograph: Sara Hobson)

Caroline Sexton puts the force on against GB, right.

(Photograph: Sara Hobson)

The feeling of winning a match, the first win ever for the Irish Ju-nior Women’s Team, has no comparison.


cluding picking the team.

There were also initial doubts that people would see the Mixed Team as an alternative or the lesser squad after trying out for the Open or the Women’s team. While some people on the team did try out for other teams, there were many who were excited at this new opportunity to play Mixed ultimate at a higher level. It was a great journey, a new team, a new start.

Following our second training session together the squad was finally selected and we could be-

gin gel together. It was difficult as many of us had played together, but not as a whole. Look-ing around at one of the first training sessions, there was a Jabba section, a Cork section, and a mishmash of a Trinity section. After a while though we began to find our rhythm, the groups merged, and we started becoming a team.

Our first tournament was a big challenge. We had little training with the entire team, and some players were feeling nervous about how we would actually play together. Playing with Gerry Murphy jerseys as opposed to Irish jer-

The first thing that should said about the Mixed team at EUC this year was, if not for Simon Cocking submitting a bid to the newly formed NSB, we may well have never sent a team. The suc-cess of the team over the year high-lights what a missed opportunity this

could have been. Thank you Simon!

Being the first Irish team to represent at Euro-pean’s in the Mixed Division, it was difficult to set expectations for the team in January. The first month was at the best of times hectic: we were behind other teams in a lot of areas in-

mIxeD Team 2011

by Clíodhna Ní Ghiollogháin and Peter Forde

Back (From left to right): Emer Staunton, Fintan Darcy, Peter Forde, Fiona Mernagh, Keith Mernah, Jennifer Kwon, Ian Fox, Gráinne McCarthy, Dónal Murray, Celine Campbell, James Finn, Aideen Costello, Mary McKee Front: Brian David Henderson, Richard Buggy, Seamus Kinsella, Orla Ní Breasaíl, Javin Li, Clíodhna Ní Ghiollagáin, Ben Sweeney, Megan Reilly, Ian French


next game.

Monday morning we faced the Netherlands. After our disappointing result against them in Amsterdam, we all knew we had this fight in us. We dug deep and never gave up and took a strong lead. Although they did come back, we ran away with it in the end, winning 17-12. Next up was Belgium, who we had heard had stacked their team for the mixed division. They were seeded 4th and were extremely tall, which they used to their advantage. We simply couldn’t compete with their 6’6 tall receivers and we lost 17-10.

Although every game was important, to stay in the top group we needed to beat Slovakia the next day. Playing in the intense heat at 1.30pm, everyone just stepped it up a gear. We put away a massive lead and were winning 9-3 at half time. Although we looked com-fortable winners, all credit to Slovakia: They didn’t give up easily and began to claw back. Suddenly we found ourselves up 16-15 and we just couldn’t convert: Game to 18. At universe point, on offence, we got point blocked in front

of our end zone. It all looked lost. However, an amazing lay-out D from Ben got us back in the game. Then, on disc, Frenchy looked up, saw Pete running, and just threw it. All those ta-batas must have worked as Pete sprinted and took down the disc to the jubilant crowd. To lose that game would have been gutting; to win it was indescribable.

After that victory, everything changed. The next day we went out against Switzerland and Hun-gary, and put in amazing performances despite the physicality of both sides. Pulling away in the first half seemed to be our trademark as we ran away with both games 9-3 and 9-1 respec-tively before the break. Although both teams did make come backs, we wanted it more and finished them 17-11 and 17-9.

With everything to play for, we headed into the quarter final against Great Brit- ain. They were seeded first and had beaten everyone comfortably up until

seys helped relieve some of the pressure: it was a training tournament and we were there to learn. Our O and D lines had not yet been completely finalized, so we played around with them a bit and were delighted at the end result of the tournament: Fifth place with 5 wins and 2 losses. We left Cardiff confident in our abili-ties and sure we could improve. Winning Spirit also was the icing on the cake!

Next up was our training session in Cork. Nota-bly the best training weekend in terms of our play. The team became more uni-fied and was looking forward to Windmill the following week. The tournament itself was as fun as it always is. The pouring rain didn’t dampen our spirits as we faced up to France, Austria, the Nether-lands, Russia and Sexy Legs (some of the Estonian team). Although we gave it our all, we lost in close games against France and Austria, but felt we let ourselves down losing to the Dutch. Our first international scalp was against the Russians. We were magnificent and ham-mered them 17-5, which is surprising as they ended up in the final at Euros!

Following one more final training weekend, we were ready to hit Maribor. Seeded mid table with some big teams ahead of us, there was a quiet confidence in the squad that we could maintain our position and even dare to dream bigger, although this dream was never voiced. Being the first Irish Mixed team, our only goal was to do our best and take each game at a time.

Sunday morning, full of nerves, we kitted out against Poland. Seeded 12th, we knew noth-

ing about this team and for the first time, our O line found it dif-ficult to convert. Although the D line played great, the O line was slightly frustrated at our lack of connection and we lost the game 17-12. Next up was Germany, seeded 2nd, who were probably the nicest team ever! Singing our national anthem atrociously was our first mistake, however the

Germans simply outclassed us. We put up a great fight though, but eventually lost 17-10. Having heard that the women beat GB and the Open team had won as well, our first day was slightly disappointing, but after a good night’s sleep and a dodgy dinner, we were ready for the

Ben Sweeney lays out to stop a throw that would have won Slovakia a 17-16 game. (Photograph: Aoife Delany)

Fiona Mernagh takes down a disc against The Netherlands. (photograph: Aoife Delany)

And her brother, Keith does the same against Belgium. (photograph: Aoife Delany)

Singing the n a t i o n a l a n t h e m atrociously was our first mistake


this stage. We desperately wanted to prove them wrong and to put up a good fight. Unfor-tunately, in a hotly contested game, they out-classed us.

Defeated but not demoralized, the following morning we had to play to beat our seeding. Up against tough competition in Austria, we knew we had a score to settle with them following our 17-12 loss to them in Amsterdam. As usual, we pulled away in the first half, and were simply better. In the second half, it looked like they decided to play as we knew they could, and so we traded. Fortunately for us our lead was too strong and we won 17-13. We had beaten our seeding!

Our competition for the 5th/6th playoffs was Germany. The prize of being the highest Irish team placed at a tournament was all to play

for. Although Germany looked tired, they got the points when they were needed and we lost 17-12 in an incredibly enjoyable and spirited game. A game of Zulu finished the tournament; Kings, green dresses, and people falling out of trees finished the night for us.

It was an interesting 6 months, and everyone came on leaps and bounds. Our MVPs Fiona and Ian were monumental on the pitch, but ev-eryone contributed in their own way. Massive thanks goes to our captain Pete Forde who was the driving force behind the team, pushing us all to do our tabatas and being an inspiration on the pitch. Another thanks goes to Si Cock-ing who provided great insight as a coach and helped us all find different ways in which to im-prove. All in all, it was a great feeling to beat our seeding and to prove that the Mixed Division in Ireland is a force to be reckoned with.

IrelanD Open 2011By Brian McDevitt, Sam Mehigan and Niall Harbourne

Some thoughts from old timer Brian McDevitt, and analyst Sam Mehigan.

Brian mc Devitt

expectations for the week ?

Being in with a shout of beating our previous best finish

Best moment ?

For the country, it would be the mixed team

making the quarter finals and the women beat-ing GB. For the Open team it would be in the victory over Czech Rep, a game we had to win. Adam Glover getting a goal saving layout D, run-ning the length of the field and beating not one, not two, but three guys to the disc for a goal. In the same game, Hogie destroying the Czech play-maker on D (and himself in the process): a guy who had vastly more experience than him but ended up a beaten man and retired into the middle of the stack to get out of the way. That earned Hogie the MVP for that game.

For me personally, it was how I played, and be-

Adam Glover in action against the Czech Republic (Photograph: Aoife Delany)


coming one of only 4 players to play in 39 of the last 40 Ireland open games at majors.

Worst moment ?

On the playing front, knowing all the 5 games that we lost we could have won. Knowing that in 3 of them we had all the chances we needed to win.

On the experience front, it was having the mis-fortune to be drawn against a couple of teams who play with complete contempt and disre-spect for the rules and their opponents. May we never see an Irish team play like that.

Overall impressions of the week ?

Playing sport at that level is ferocious craic

Where to now ?

Jaysus. Dunno. A bit more sport at that level while I still can.

Sam mehigan

expectations for the week ?

Though we weren't meant to be focusing on results, in my own head the goal was to make quarters, and then see if we have a winnable game that could give us a shot at top 4. Given the way we performed at times that wasn't out of the question but unfortunately it didn't come to pass.

Best moment ?

Most ecstatic had to be the girls beating the Brits. Personally I would be torn between our comeback against Finland and taking half against GB. We only got one turn out of the Finns in the first half so we weren't looking good in terms of clawing it back. Big turnaround from the D line brought us back to level at 14s which was phenomenal for a team that's never come close to them in the past. Against GB I wasn't at all confident since they were reigning champs and we could only manage to come 7th while play-

ing against British clubs at tour. Being a break up at half showed me that we were able to mix it with anyone if we got our act together.

Worst moment ?

Losing to the Ruskies and going out of the tour-nament. On top of bottling a lead in the last few points, it was the worst atmosphere I've ever experienced on an Ultimate pitch. Hopefully we won't have to play games like that again.

Overall impressions of the week ?

There's a lot of craic on a team that focuses so much on positivity, so off the pitch was great. On the pitch I think we performed beyond all expectations for 95% of the week. Unfortunate-ly it was about 10 points that let us down at the end of the close games, so our finishing posi-tion was lower than we had hoped for. Overall I think playing for Ireland is probably the best thing that you can do as a player, and I can't wait for the next time.

Where to now ?

Japan ideally. I think it would be a shame to let all the work the national teams did this year pe-ter out and not continue to push as hard as we can against the rest of the world. Word is that this could be the last WUGC that won't require qualification, so I may not get another chance to play at it if we don't do well enough in future EUCs.

Fergus McAuliffe skies a Finn, right.

(Photograph: Aoife Delany)

Back (from left to right): Niall Harbourne (C), Brian Begley, Pádraic McMorrow, Enda Naughton, Oisín Flanagan, Sam Mehigan, Robin Giller, Fergus McAuliffe, David Ferguson, Cian Quinn, Cian Ó Móráin. Front: Mark Earley, Seamus Murray, Podge, Robert Kane, Brian McDevitt, Adam Glover, Conor Hogan, David McAlester, Rob Kiely, Brian O’Callaghan, Rory Kavanagh Sr., Dominick Smyth, David Misstear


niall Harbourne

expectations for the week?

The goals we had set out coming into Slovenia meant that I didn’t go in focusing on a finishing posi-tion. The expectations I had set out for the lads, and had in my own head, were all about executing the skills and patterns we had practised in the months leading up to the tournament. I knew if we consistently execut-ed these systems that we would be a match for most teams, and the end product of this would be a high finishing position. We had great team spirit and tons of competition at training, com-bined with some big results with club and coun-try, so I was going in expecting big things.

Best moment?

There were so many. The feeling of getting to pull on the green jersey again, and stepping onto the line for the 1st point of the tourna-ment is always amazing; even more so as Cap-tain. It’s a range of emotions that I can’t try to put into words. It’s also crazy the little things that don’t seem that significant as a player, but mean so much more as a Captain: It’s an expe-rience I couldn’t recommend enough.

There were so many big performances from each of teams: The ladies kicking it off on day one by beating GB.... Again! The Mixed team tearing it up and making the quarter-finals. And I think we provided a lot of entertainment for the neutrals watching a few of our games!

Purely from the Open team’s point of view, I think the game against the Czechs was the standout performance of the week: It was a must win game and we really stepped up to the mark: We went out strong, hit a sticky patch in the middle but had the character and heart to finish it out. Captain Mavis got a huge layout D. G-Lover got a lay out D, dusted himself off, and ripped a huge catch for a goal. JTM got MVP. That’s only a few highlights in a game where our entire team showed what we were about.

Worst moment?

It has to be the feeling just af-ter the Russian game: It took me a good few minutes to compose myself before I was able to go into the huddle after the game. It’s a feeling I’ve experienced

a few times in sport, and unfortunately a few times for Ireland, and it never gets any easier to take. The beauty of team sports though is that you don’t have to bear this feeling alone. It’s not long before team dynamic kicks back in and it doesn’t seem quite so bad.

Overall impressions of the week?

I was very impressed with the tournament setup. Considering Ultimate has only been in Slovenia for a few years, and to the best of my knowl-edge the organising committee hadn’t seen or competed in a tournament of this size or qual-ity before, they did a great job. It’s never going to be perfect, but they got most things spot on with a few nice touches.

On the Ultimate front I definitely think we are moving in the right direction. The gap between the top teams and the rest is getting smaller. I think our first half performance against GB showed this (it’s just a shame we couldn’t live with them a bit better in the second half), and there were a nice few upsets along the way. The competition between the middle ranking teams was also great. The difference of 4 or 5 points would have had a massive impact on where we could have potentially finished, which highlights this point.

Where to now?

That’s a pretty tough question. With the timing of the tournament next year, it means decisions it would be nice to put off for a few more weeks have to be made now. At the minute I’m just enjoying resting up and healing the few inju-ries I picked up at the tail-end of the season. I’m planning to do a big winter of conditioning and hitting the ground running strong next year. Who knows what that will bring...?

IrelanD WOmen 2011High highs and low lowsby Linda Barry

THe rOaD TO eUC

The highs

Going into this season there was a definite buzz among the women’s ultimate community in Ire-land. We had the biggest, most experienced pool of players ever available for selection, and we’d come a long way since the preparations began for the last EUC in 2007: Individually and as a national team we had wins under our belt against national teams and top club teams, and we were hungry for more.

The first training weekend got our preparations off to a great start. We went straight into our new defensive concept of ‘deny and contain’ – and saw the impact straight away. It was clear that all 19 players had come ready to think, learn, work, and to give this team their all.

In March we played a training game against the Ireland Mixed team. It was our first opportu-nity to play together as a team, and we were pumped. We lost by a couple of points but this was the first real sign we had that our systems worked against outside opposition and that we were gelling as a team… Phew!

Back (from left to right): Louise McKeown, Olwen Murphy, Caoimhe Quigley, Sinead O’Shiel Fleming, Linda Barry (c), Liz Schaffalitzky, Fiona McDonald, Finola Shannon, Sparky Booker, Sara Jane Monaghan. Front: Yvonne Halpin, Helen Hobson, Deirdre Ní Bhreasaíl, Claire Pugh, Courtney Hosp, Laura McGrath, Amy Moffat, err

getting to pull on the green jersey is always amazing.


Taking bronze at Windmill Windup 2011 was a huge highlight of the season. It was an incred-ible tournament: crazy winds, so much rain, and an onslaught of strong teams including ten of the thirteen national teams entered for EUC. We became known around the tournament site for our win against GB – the news spread like wildfire! – but we had much more than that one game to be proud of. We had a huge fight-back before losing in sudden death to the Czechs. We beat France with one of the biggest winning margins we have ever had against them. And we dominated the third-fourth playoff, again against the Czechs, despite going in the game with a very small squad.

The lows

As always, injuries reared their head through-out the season. They ranged from the bizarre (Caoimhe and Amy both in hospital due to in-sect bites, Yiv’s thumb be-ing broken in a GB player’s mouth), to the recurring (2011 was definitely the Year of the Hamstring), to the most upsetting – an ACL tear which left Emily unable to continue the season.

marIBOr, SlOVe-nIa

The highs

Ireland 17 – 15 Great Britain. What a match to kick off our EUC 2011 campaign! Not only was this a fantastic win against the top seeds and eventual silver medallists, it was an incredibly exciting match and a fantastic team performance. We stepped out there with no fear, be-lieving that we could take them. And within a couple of minutes we went 4-0

down! We lost the half 9-4, but an amazing phase of play early in the second half saw us score seven points in a row. At one stage we went 14-11 ahead. They fought back to 14-14. We kept our heads and closed out the game 17-15 with a backhand from Fiona to Sinead for the win. What I strongly feel made that victory so sweet, and I said it in our team huddle after the match, was the fact that we won it as a unit: Every single player played their part, stayed fo-cused and put themselves on the line for the team. That felt pretty amazing!

One thing that has to be mentioned, especially as it seems our experience differed so much from the Open team, is the incredibly high level of Spirit in the women’s division. Every single team we played against, with the exception of the Italians, was amazingly spirited: Calm, fair minded and open to discussing any issues

that arose. The Spirit prize was awarded to the wrong team at the ceremony, but Austria were the very well-deserved actual winners.

The lows

Our crossover game against Denmark in the eve-ning of day two was a crunch game for us. Win-ning would guarantee us a spot in the top eight, and leave the possibility open of becoming Eu-ropean Champions! Losing would lock us out of the top four and mean that we could still come last, despite having beaten GB and finishing a very-respectable second in our initial group. The Danes are a spirited, athletic bunch of girls who we have had about a 50-50 head-to-head re-cord with at club/international/warm-up tour-naments over the past few years. In Maribor, the game just slipped away from us. We were never far off, but always behind. Our D seemed just a second slower to react than normal, and on O we had some uncharacteristic turns down-field and on our reset. In the end, we lost 17-11, exhausted and crushed.

A quick men-tion here of our nightmare game against the Czech women: This was the af-ternoon of day four, and totally inexplicably, we absolutely im-ploded. We lost 17-4 to a team we had beaten twice in warm-up tournaments this year. The emotions im-mediately after the game were much more mut-ed than after the Danish game – I think there was a certain

sense of detachment from what had just hap-pened, a feeling of “that was not us out there”. We could barely string three passes together, and literally everything went wrong. This was technically the loss that meant we could no lon-ger finish top eight (although had we beaten the Latvians the previous day in what was a much closer game, and really the one we could/should have won, we would still have qualified for the 4-8 bracket).

OFF pITCH We were part of the biggest ever ‘Team Ireland’ travelling to an Ultimate championships. There were about 70 of us in all, including our ab-solutely deadly athletic therapist, Aoife. The banter was brilliant as always, and with so much going on, we were amazed at the support we got from the Open and Mixed teams. A couple of moments stand out.

First, the Mixed team coming over the hill to

Claire Pugh scores against Latvia. (Photograph: Aoife Delany) Fiona McDonald throws to Sinéad O’Shiel Flemming for the winning score against GB! (Photograph: Aoife Delany)


the arena pitch mid-way through the first half of our show game against Italy, singing, waving flags and generally going mental. Second, the Ireland side-line Vs Italy side-line sing-off dur-ing that same match. We didn’t manage to win the game, but at least our side-line dominated theirs! Finally, the sight of the Open team pick-ing their way down the hill, late in the day, in the rain, to support us against Denmark.

The level of support we received, both before and during the tournament, really helped to get us through an exhausting week. We were buoyed by every single message of support that we got by text, email and on the team Facebook page. One email caused particular excitement – our personalised send off from Brian O’Driscoll, “Wishing you guys all the very best of luck out in Slovenia. Enjoy the moment of representing your country – it’s an awesome feeling. Go out there and absolutely rock it! Brian” (…true sto-ry!!). (Fiona McD almost cried – Ed.)

The overall picture of our week was resound-ingly positive – we played 1100 minutes of ul-timate, dominated the lower pool, and won seven out of our eleven matches. We finished the tournament in 9th place – the highest an Irish Women’s team has ever placed at an in-ternational competition. We know now that we can beat the big teams and that we are a strong side, not the underdogs.

While we didn’t finish as high as we had been aiming for, the fact that we had those expecta-tions of ourselves , and believed in our abili-ties, is a huge step forward from four years ago. Unfortunately that makes the lows lower, but it also makes the highs much higher.

JUnIOr Open 2011by Alan Fitzpatrick

In 2010 I trained and played with the juniors at WJUC in Heilbronn, Germany. This was an ab-solutely incredible experience. It was at that tournament that I truly fell in love with the Ul-timate as a sport. Unfortunately, I picked up a tournament ending injury in game 5. I pulled my hip flexor and wasn’t back running for an-other 2 weeks.

My misfortune in the 2010 tournament provided motivation to come back and really prove my-self this year. Yes, I had represented my coun-try, but I hadn’t been able to give my all, and I felt guilty. Luckily I made the team...

This year’s coaching team was a great one. We were gifted with the experience and leadership of Alan (D-Man) Doyle, one of Irish Ultimate’s most successful and influential players. Along-side Alan was my former teammate and close friend, Conor Hogan. It was great to have Conor around. He had been through the Junior system- as the first ever captain in 2009, as well

as playing again in 2010- and was able to give us all advice on how to improve within it.

The training regime was tough but successful: We had a lot to do in a very short period of time, but I believe the coaches did a great job. They got the newer lads up to speed and to a high level of play quickly, while also improving the skills of the more experienced players.

We left for Wroclaw early on Sunday 7th August. After multiple delays, including changing plane, we finally arrived in Poland. The first two days were filled with “mac” lines, mingling with oth-er teams and trips to McDonalds for €4 Big Mac meals.

We woke early on our first day and headed to the pitches to get breakfast and support the girls in their first match. After this we were in-formed that there had been a schedule change and that we would be playing Italy in 15 min-utes! We promised each other that we wouldn’t

Captain Linda Barry makes a layout grab against GB (Photograph: Aoife Delany)

Front (from left to right): Ben Noonan, Adam Cullen, Matthew Healy (c), Shaun Cullen, Cillian Flynn, Matthew Feely, Comhghall McKeating, Ben Matthews, Conor McCarthy, Sam Franklin Back: Richard O’Reilly, Barry Walsh, Brian Boyle, Robert Shalloo, Philip Doyle, Daniel McNicholas, Donnchadh Mc Auliffe, Alan Fitzpatrick (c), Bryan Dornan, Owen Binchy, Jamie Chambers, Brendan O’Donnell. (Not Present: Rory Duff)


use this unexpected change as an excuse. We went through a very brief warm up and got our heads in. We were ready.

There was quite a bit of wind and Italy came out with a well drilled zone. We struggled. We weren’t playing with confidence, we were hold-ing back, and this cost us. After a time out and a quick chat from D-man, we got our heads together and re-focused. We fought back and played some excellent D. People were putting their bodies on the line and getting turnovers: It was great to see. Our offense still struggled as we tried to force things. We ended up getting two nice goals in a match against the eventual bronze medal winners.

Later we played the Belgians in a tightly con-tested, well-spirited match, one which was ex-tremely enjoyable to play in. We really clicked as a team. Our defence was honest and intense, and our offence was patient. Our spirits were kept high throughout by my ever enthusiastic co-captain Matty Healy. We ended up losing, but we came out of it with our heads held high, having proven why we were wearing the green jerseys.

The highlight of the tournament, for me, was our game against GB. We came out with all guns blazing. We were really up for it and we had a point to prove. After an early, and physi-cal, “pick” call, I had a little chat with the GB captain, letting him know that we would play at a high intensity if they were up for it, and that we would let the game flow with little bits of contact here and there. He agreed, and the game went on at a very high intense level. Af-ter our promising start they took the half 9-2. Some of our heads were down, but we weren’t defeated. We had been rattled by their skill and speed of play on offence, but we knew we didn’t deserve to be down by that much.

Our second half display was honestly one of the most inspirational ones I have ever seen in Ul-timate. We really stuck it to GB, trading with them to 6-6 in the second half, eventually los-ing 8-6. I was so proud of my teammates after that match. Every single player had put in an incredible performance. I played the match of my life against GB that day, and I was thrilled that I did it in the Irish jersey.

There’s a certain sense of purpose you feel when you put your country’s jersey on, you no longer

care about getting hurt or getting too tired. You run your hardest and you bid for everything. Every player on my team knew that day that we weren’t just playing for ourselves, we were playing on behalf of Irish Ultimate, represent-ing hundreds of players. I believe that we did so with as much passion and determination that any Irish player could have shown.

The most difficult experience of the week was, for me, our match against the Russians. It came

It took an inspirational speech from Alan Doyle to get our heads back in the game. Yes, we were down by 5, but the game was not over yet. One trait of Irish ultimate teams, which has been instilled into me, is that we never ever give up. That day against the Russians was no different. We came out composed, focused, and bashed them! We went on a 7-3 run and to say they were shaking in their boots is an understate-ment. With the score at 11-10 to the Russians, we began to believe: Maybe this was our game,

towards the end of the tournament when we had picked up a few injuries. Nevertheless we were up for the match, dying to get our first win. The girl’s team were out to support us, fresh from their win over Poland, and it was great to have their added support on the side line. We start-ed quite slowly, giving the Russians too much early on. We let them dictate how they wanted to play and ultimately this is what cost us the match. Their team was no stronger than ours, but they wanted it more in the opening 40 min-utes. They took half 8-3, and we were shaken.

our first win? In the end, it wasn’t to be. After 117 minutes of ultimate the Russians came out on top winning the match 15-11.

I was absolutely crushed. As captain I had let my team down, and I found it really hard to cope with this. It’s easy to be a leader when things are going well, but when it all goes wrong you’re the one who has to take responsibility. Personally, the loss had a lasting effect. It genu-inely took me a few weeks to get over it, that’s how much that match meant to me.

Owen Binchy in action against the Italians (Photograph: Sara Hobson)

Daniel McNicholas puts pressure on a handler. (Photograph: Sara Hobson)

IFDa newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2 page 21

My experience this year was an incredible one. I grew both as a player and as a person. I made some amazing friends, shared some unbeliev-able times with them, and played some top class ultimate. For me there is no better way to spend my time. After this summer I know that Ultimate is the sport for me, and I can safely say that this is also the case for a lot of my team mates.

I’d like to thank the IFDA for their continued support for the growth of the sport at Junior

level. If it wasn’t for them I’d still be playing minor B football for Kilmacud Crokes: Not as exciting! I’d also like to thank Alan Doyle and Conor Hogan for being the best coaches we could have asked for. They were immense, and we really owe them.

This is only the start for more than half of the players in the squad- with 14 eligible again in 2012. I know that next year we will come back stronger and even more determined. Bring on Worlds!

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IFDA newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2