The tournament was a wonderful experience, both on and off the pitch. In just a week so many things happened that none of us will ever forget. We gelled as a team and as close friends - probably helped a lot by the messy love circle at the end of the week!
To finish off our reports, here are a few memories we thought should be mentioned:
Mingle mingle in the pool and out of it was loads of fun. We did a different version against the Canadians and Megan was in the final against a Canadian player. They had to do a slack jaw dance-off and em... for the sake of everyone not there, that's enough said.
Alan's idea to make Deirdre eat a whole gooey glob of congealed jellies: the 'can you fit it all in your mouth' challenge. Olly was a great ally, pushing Deirdre on. She turned purple in the end but she managed to get them all in! Alan got his comeuppance when the same thing happened to a bag of Haribo later in the week. He had to spit it out too but he got all of it in with slightly less bulging eyes than Deirdre!
Darragh ate a live cicada in exchange for 8 beers. Which he never got.
Courtney's crazy faces and crazy grabs.
Moffat's (or 'Muffet's') perfect floaty reset throws every time. She was a bit of an unsung hero this week. Her throws got things moving on O and she was always there as dump when there was no option up the field. Her pitch sense is amazing. She was always baiting the other team to throw a pass to a player which she then stole right out from in front of them.
Amy C taking on role of shortfill with gusto. A position she had never played and she managed to get free every time the disc got stuck on the sideline. She did not panic on the disc but waited for the 100% option to happen and took it. She also managed to take down so many discs way above her head and by playing smart outran many girls who were much quicker than she was.
All of our outside-in hucks and hammers, the practice paid off.
Saturday night in the hostel (before the police came due to noise and caused us a lot of trouble. Wreck the buzzes).
Claire's excellent D against Finland where she not only steamed ahead of her player to get there first but she also caught it cleanly. She then threw it to the ground. (She thought she had landed out but had in fact been in). Turn over!
Helen had this to say:
I really enjoyed and gained so much inspiration from the fact that I never, nor I doubt anyone else left the pitch after a point without an encouraging comment from what was the most encouraging and well-spirited team I have ever played on.
Speaking of Helen, I mentioned she was fierce in the cup (someone mentioned a Hobson-cup being the most terrifying form of defence a team could have) but in the Japan game she not only got a D, she also scored that point. Who has the legs to do that! The next day she went and got a handblock on a Canadian handler. Too easy.
Fiona played a hand in 11 out of 15 of the points in the second Finland game. Deirdre was a massive force in the game too and was always able to get free at will.
Louise's super post-sunstroke comeback. It made such a difference to have her back. A favourite moment of her was in the game against Canada where she sent a beautiful outside in flick across the pitch, past her dump, past the stack and into Claire's awaiting arms. I'm not sure what inspired it but a score came off easily because of it and it was sexy.
Talking about the handlers, Sinead was so impressive this week. She might well have been the most improved player on the team. Her dump cutting was proper, quick and had lost all thoughts of indecision. She was a lot more confident on the disc and rarely made a bad choice. She also got really intense on D and stuck tight to her player in every game. Her breaks were always perfectly on and she did it was though no one was forcing her at all.
Aine was the same; she was very safe on the disc. She worked hard on every defence point. Whether she was short-fill or dump, she managed to get free and take the disc down.
Claire absolutely never stopped running for any disc or on defense. She was the perfect teammate. She was always upbeat, always pumped up, and always wanted the disc. An absolute inspiration for everyone.
Jennifer’s zone defense was incredible. Having just started this year, she wouldn’t have trained that much on zone, and certainly never with our team! She managed to shut down so much movement as the wing. She didn’t let the disc get past her on the sideline and trusted her teammates speaking to her on the sideline to tell her where her biggest threat was!
Megan was another massive threat on defense. She got several massive d’s, where she smashed the disc to the ground and then calmly ran and made perfect cuts. She also managed to take herself out when she caught a terrible disc not even intended for her, helping us score an early point in our comeback against Finland (the first time).
Fiona was a shark as the deep. Everyone standing on the sideline kept hoping to see the offense put the disc long because everyone was confident that Fiona would be the one to take it down.
Courtney was an all rounder as a captain. She was an efficient organiser, a tear-jerking speech maker and a powerful handler. She kept everyone going and took care of anyone who needed it, making two separate trips to the hospital with some of our players. I heard her right gun increased to twice its size with all the hucking and pulling she did.
Alan was so helpful on the sideline. He was innovative when things weren’t working. In the Columbia game, we were being annihilated and he pulled Courtney aside and said, from now on, your line is the D line. Your job is to tell those girls to run as hard as they can toward the endzone and either your or Louise is just to put it to them. If they take it down, grand, we’ll play from there. If not, we’ll zone the shit out of them. And we did. And the score the second half of that game was Ireland 7-Columbia 8.
Emma was the most dependable receiver on the team. Handlers had no qualms about putting a disc long to her because she took everything down. She was a huge asset on d because she always came down with shitty discs put up by the other team. She never stopped cutting, never stopped running her ass off on d, and never stopped shutting down the deep game of the other team.
Deirdre was another huge asset to the team. She brought an attitude of let’s go out there and get this and have fun doing it. She had so many d’s and her connection with Fiona was unstoppable. In the first game, Deirdre threw a few flick hucks that didn’t come off. She said to a few of us on the sideline, I really should stop doing that. And she did. She threw one hundred percent throws for the rest of the week, and as it turned out, some were beautiful flick hucks with patient accuracy.
Helen was an ideal receiver. All you had to do was make eye contact with this girl and she would run anywhere to take down the disc for you.
Caoimhe was a massive d player this week. She took so many discs out of the air that she had no right catching. She ran her ass off in the cup on many occasions. She said to Courtney on the sideline once after being congratulated on taking down a disc way over her head, “What do you mean? I was always going to catch that disc.” Her swagger proved how far she’s come as a player in the last six months.
Celine, having never really played much in the women’s scene before, was an absolute beast on the pitch. No one will soon forget the point in the last game where she got a massive d right outside their endzone after having run around in the cup for five minutes. She calmly received a pass from one of the other girls long before any of the handlers had a chance to get within 30 metres of the disc.
Olly was a great role model on the pitch. She played calm offense, only throwing good passes and catching everything sent her way, meant for her or not. She took the disc back so many times, making her by far our most effective d player. She struggle with niggles all week but played on, never complaining. When she was no longer able to play, she was still such an asset. She screamed from the sideline and was so helpful to her teammates on the pitch. This is the definition of a true team player.
Lastly, a special mention has to be made of the mixed team. When we all saw them playing in their final game against Finland, we all wished we could have seen the start of their week because nothing could have inspired us more to play our hearts out. They were relentless fighters and it was not evident that any of them had been playing for 5 days in the blazing sunshine. The girls were phenomenal- how they kept sprinting and wiping the floor with their markers with so few of them was unbelievable. The boys were the perfect set of guys you want on a mixed team. There was no GB style about them! Their intense zone was unbeatable, especially with an aggressive mark like Fintan's. They were raring for it the whole way through and they should know that they did Ireland the proud. There was never defeat on their faces and Italy was definitely aware that they only won by pure luck because the Irish were out for their scalp.
Courtney and Fiona
