NUI Galway hockey rises from the ashes

On the verge of fading into obscurity five years ago, today it is a serious force in both the local and national game, boasts a healthy playing base, and has become a leading light among NUIG’s alumni community.

Up until the 2010 season, fielding a team in the local league or intervarsity competitions was nothing short of a struggle for NUIG.

In many respects, the club lacked direction, inspiration and leadership but all that was to change as a core group of girls came together to take part in the ‘Sports Connect Award’.

The prize for winning the NUIG Alumni Leadership programme was a support package, which included mentoring from the alumni fraternity in improving the administration and other skills of club officers and, generally, aiding the club to develop.

As the 2010 winners, the hockey club substantially benefited.

“People like Aoife Dervan, Sarah Ward, Síle Johnson and Brona McMorrow were all involved in getting the club back on its feet,” begins Head Coach Fintan O’Flynn who would, perhaps, be better known for his playing exploits with Corinthians and Connacht rugby teams during the late 1970s and ‘80s.

“I met somebody who said NUIG were looking for a coach. I had been coaching in Greenfields but I met the girls, along with Tony ‘Cha’ Kennedy (fellow coach), and the two us got on board. We said ‘as long as we are having fun and ye are having fun we will stay together’. And that is the way it has turned out.”

Now heading into his fifth season at the helm, O’Flynn can only laud the players for what they have achieved. Continually he stresses that it has been the players who have taken “ownership” of the club and he says that needed to happen if it was to be competitive. The players had to buy into it.

“A lot of players who come from school teams come from an environment where they are told what to do. However, we try to create the framework where they make the decisions. We say to them you are allowed to make mistakes but just don’t keep repeating the stupid ones. The girls have responded well.”

Indeed, earlier this year, they reached the Irish Trophy semi-final, where they lost to eventual winners Cork Church of Ireland. However, this was a step further than the year previous – beaten in the quarter-final – but there was some consolation on that occasion as they won the 2013 Connacht Senior Cup.

“It was the first trophy they won in 13 years in College. We beat Greenfields in the final even though they had won the Irish Trophy. It was a really good game. So, we have become competitive but it is not the be-all and end-all. Yes, we do the best we can do and we work hard at it but we really put an emphasis on enjoying it.”

This ethos has certainly resonated with NUIG’s female sporting fraternity with numbers signing up each year continuing to rise. So, much so, the club now fields two teams – Divisions 1 and 2 – in the local hockey leagues.

To further underline the significant progress the club, which now competes in the top tier of intervarsity hockey, has made is that it now runs its own indoor tournament for second-level schools, namely the Teresa Concannon Cup. This year, Taylor’s Hill defeated Salerno in the final.

Another welcome development has been the emergence of a mixed veterans section, men and women, the aim of which is to encourage alumni and other older adults to participate in sport. O’Flynn, who works for a US multi-national, explains: “We have a vets’ hockey team which evolved out of the [Corinthians] rugby veteran tag team we had. Some of these guys had never played hockey before.

“It started out of a base of 10 people but now we have about 40 coming and go. There is no commitment. Then, through Tony and my own involvement in NUIG, we linked in with NUIG as a vets’ wing. And we are officially there now.”

The correlation between the ladies and vets divisions has had other benefits too, with the alumni vets offering advice on running committees, handling finances, mentoring on good meeting practice, managing human resources and CV preparation. This, though, has not been the only link.

“One of the big things is that we run a parent-child match. Sort of ‘bring a parent, bring a child’. This started out with the girls on the hockey team bringing a parent out and the people from the veterans bringing their kids out. We mixed up the teams and had a social day. Now, we have it twice a year.

“The girls have pushed that in the College. So, at the end of the exams last May, we had 60 people up in Dangan, ranging in age from nine to 76 playing hockey. This very much fits in with the philosophy the Alumni is promoting that ‘sport is for life’. It is not just while you are in college or when you are young.”

In many respects, O’Flynn’s hockey experience has almost come full circle, in that it was his two daughters and players – Lesley and Lauren – who brought him into the game. Now, he and his wife Susan, a fellow ‘vet’, are as much immersed in hockey as their children.

Along with Kennedy and Brennan, O’Flynn acknowledges the support they have received from technical coach Andrew Kinsella, strength and conditioning guru Peter Moore and NUIG’s Sport Clubs and Participation Development Officer Kathy Hynes, along with the likes of Mike and Anne Colleran and Dave Hickey for their efforts with the vets section.

While the latter is very close to his own heart – and he encourages anyone interested to just walk-in off the street and give it a go – his thoughts return to the ladies team with the new season just around the corner.

“What we really want to be is competitive but we don’t want to lose the ethos of enjoyment that we have in the club either,” he says.

“That is a fairly hard act to balance because the better girls will want to push on and yet at the same time you have got to be able to accommodate the people who make up the club. So, that is the biggest challenge, keeping that going.”

For further information on the ladies hockey team, which trains Mondays and Wednesdays, contact club captain Claire Watson (087-4127376). Those wishing to try their hand at the vets’ hockey – Wednesdays and Sundays – contact Fintan on 087-9292375.