Interview #10 - Estelle Murchan

Bonjour Estelle, ça va?
Salut Hogi! Ça va très bien, merci. 

I could try do this whole interview in French but I would embarrass myself immensely. Congrats on making the team! This is your second involvement with an Irish team, tell us about your WJUC experience last year.
Haha so I won’t let you embarrass yourself, I shall continue in English. Thank you, I was delighted to have been selected to play with an Irish team for the second year in a row. WJUC 2012 was such a good week. I’d only started playing ultimate four months before the trial and was nearly not going to try out but then I decided sure I may as well give it a go! And I was happy I did, as I got to experience playing a high level of ultimate against teams from all around the world and I learned a lot about different aspects of ultimate during the week which I can carry on with me while playing on this team. 

You finished the week strong by beating Finland, a team you had lost to earlier in the week. That must have felt pretty good at the end of a tough campaign.
Definitely. After having lost to them earlier in the week, we wanted nothing more than to beat them. There were a couple of teams we had to play twice but I’m glad we got a second chance at playing Finland. I felt we were pretty even with them the first time we played them, but we just didn’t get the scores in the end. So in our last game of the tournament we got to play them again. We knew we had to come out fighting and give it everything we had, and we did, and ended up beating them on universal point. It was a really great feeling to finish the tournament on a high like that. 

How are you finding the training so far? Is it a big step up or similar to what you're used to with the Juniors last year?
It sure is, not the same kind of intensity as last year, but I like it. Having made this team just shortly after everyone else, I’ve missed out on two of the first training weekends but I’ve done my best to catch up on fitness and it’s definitely tougher than it was for juniors. The team set-up is also very different having an O-Line and D-Line, which is nice, we didn’t have that last year. In our trainings this year we do a lot of our drills separately which is good as you get more used to playing with the players on your own line. 

You play your college ultimate with DCU, how did you get involved in the first place?
Well I guess I just wanted to try something new, I saw a Frisbee lying around on clubs and socs day and I thought “wouldn’t it be fun to throw that thing around”. I’d heard it was really quite enjoyable to play, so I signed up for it. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but myself and a friend decided to come along to the trainings and and after a couple of tournaments I really enjoyed it, so I just stuck around since then. 

And now you've become ladies captain, congrats! Do you think you'll take much of what you're learning here with the U23s and implement it in the DCU team next year?
Cheers! Of course. I mean playing juniors last year and being on the U23 mixed team this year is hugely beneficial to me. We learn so many different tactics and forms of play which  I can take with me. As we don’t have an official coach I guess I’m going to have to be the one teaching the other girls! Also playing on a women’s team last year and a mixed team this year is another advantage I feel as I’m learning entirely different things that I can bring with me to the DCU womens’s team and playing DCU mixed also.We only had six players at women’s indoor, we were mixed with a few Trinity girls for Siege and couldn’t even send down a team for women’s outdoors, so hopefully we can recruit a few more girls for next year and maybe try and win something!   

You're part of the D line which perhaps over achieved in some respects (no complaints though!) at Mixed Tour in Cardiff, what do you think contributed most to the cohesion and performance of the D line that weekend?
Oh yeah, not complaining about that! This was our first tournament as a team we didn’t really know what to expect. We didn’t come out for the wins but to learn from mistakes and to stay positive really no matter what the outcome and just playing with teammates in general. I think we performed exceptionally well as a D-Line over the weekend considering we hadn’t played together as a team before. I think we just stayed calm really, and didn’t get too cocky when we were ahead and that helped the flow of our game. 

With Mixed Tour behind you and with Windmill and Toronto fast approaching, what are you working on most to get ready for the challenges ahead?
Fitness I’d say will play a huge role in any of our coming games, especially with Toronto being a week long tournament. We can’t afford to be slowing our game down because we’re tired. I’m also going to work on a lot of throwing a catching. Generally just being fit, staying healthy and try not get injured anytime before now and Toronto. 

Before playing Ultimate, you played a bit of camogie. Do you still play?
Yeah I’ve played camogie for about 10 years, and did a bit of athletics as well. I still play but not as much since I’ve been playing so much ultimate, like Oisin said, I too find myself putting a force on players or occasionally asking people do they want to ‘throw’ before a game!  

Do you find (m)any similarities between the two sports?
They are two completely different sports, I played camogie as a competitive sport, then when I got to college I and started playing ultimate it was really just for the fun side of it, I really didn’t think of playing it competitively but after having played WJUC and playing U23s this year I learned to take it a little more seriously. Coming from an athletic background helped a lot in playing ultimate, but apart from that I can’t see too many similarities, which is good, it’s a nice change. 

Just to finish with the usual closing questions; Who do you want to play most in Toronto?
Any team we'd come up against I'd be happy to play, but it'd be nice to play GB and have an Irish team beat them! I'd also like to play the likes of Australia, USA, or Colombia, and of course, Canada and maybe even try beat them on their home ground, that'd be pretty sweet. 

Give us a laugh.
How do you organise a space party?
You planet. 

Merci Estelle, bonne chance avec le reste de la campagne