Trinity retained their women’s indoor intervarsities title with a convincing performance in the final against DCU having upset tournament favourites UCC in the semis. The open team however finished second losing to UCC in the final due to a few sloppy points at a crucial point in the match which took the game away from them.
The open division (no gender restrictions) took place in DCU on the 14th of November with Trinity in the power pool with all of the top 4 seeds, the winner of the group getting an automatic spot in the final. The first game of the day was against a strong UCC side who played a zone defence which is very unusual for indoor games. Trinity managed to play through it with relative ease but some unforced errors resulted in the game becoming very close. Cork took the lead with less than a minute to go and a last second blade from Ian French to Cian Quinn left the game as a 5-5 draw.
Second game of the day was with the old rivals from Belfield. A lackluster UCD team met a fired up Trinity and never got into the game. Their turnovers were punished quickly with many of Trinity’s goals coming directly from dropped discs. Trinity win 10-5. This left Trinity with a game against DCU to potentially win the group. Unfortunately the game was played on a bigger pitch than the earlier games and DCU were able to utilise the extra breakside space a lot better than Trinity and were able to pull away towards the end of the game to win 8-6.
This left UCC in first, UCD last and Trinity and DCU tied with Trinity going ahead on goal difference. This left a crossover between Trinity’s first and second team to decide who gets a spot in the semis.
Despite the second team’s best efforts they couldn’t match the first team’s disc skills and more structured offence and lost the game 11-5.
The semi finals were set up with a rematch between Trinity and DCU and UCC taking on DIT with new recruit and former UCD captain Dave McAlester giving them a huge boost both offence and defence.
This time around trinity were able to pull through with an absolutely staggering performance from the unanimously decided MVP Cian Quinn. Scoring eight and assisting with three of all eleven goals Quinn was unstoppable near the endzone winning countless aerial battles against some far more experienced opponents. Quinn’s outstanding performance carried Trinity through to an 11-8 lead and a place in the final against UCC.
UCC once again played with their unorthodox zone defence which had proved unbeatable all day was brought to its knees by Trinity’s patient offence and frequent break throws. After conceding three or four points UCC changed their defence to a man marking system for the first time in the day. The teams traded with one break each to 7-7 but a dropped disc from a risky blade by Ian French allowed UCC to go a break up and take the lead. Two more breaks followed to give Cork a three point lead which they extended to five by the end of the game winning 15-10. Impressive performances by Ian Lau and final MVP Brian T. O’Callaghan anchored UCC to their first indoor varsity title since 2006.
Women’s indoors followed the next day. Early losses to UCD and DIT didn’t bode well for the defending champions who were missing their most experienced player and last year’s MVP of the final Sparky Booker. Jen Kwan was playing out of position all day as a handler due to low numbers but performed exceptionally well throughout the day and provided a solid base to the team’s offence at all times. Captain Heather Barry was strong as always at the back assisting in many of the team’s goals. New recruits Helen Hobson, Emma McGahey and Rebecca Wall all played amazingly well despite being new to the sport and all caught their fair share of goals. The stand out performance of the day undoubtedly came from Sarah Campbell. Though she hadn’t played since March she proved unmarkable all day with scores and assists totalling forty of the team’s fifty two goals.
The semi finals pitted Trinity against tournament favourites UCC. Trinity came out strong though, obviously having regrouped after the group stage defeats and were able to shut down much of Cork’s offence, special mention must go to Jen Kwan who ably marked top scorer for the tournament Meabh Boylan throughout the game keeping her tally to only one goal. Trinity’s superior offence carried them to an 11-7 victory in the biggest upset of the day and earned them a final against long standing rivals DCU lead by former Ireland captain Fiona Mernagh.
DCU’s isolation offence which had been effective both last year and during the earlier games on the day looked static against Trinity’s strong defence and forced risky throws which resulted in plenty of turnovers. These turns were punished severely and Trinity stormed into a 5-0 lead. An offence change and a slight resurgence from DCU wasn’t enough to combat Trinity’s solid offence who were able to maintain their lead through to the end to win 13-7. Outstanding performances from both Sarah Campbell and Helen Hobson gave Trinity 7 goals and 7 assists and earned Campbell the prize for MVP of the final.
A pleasantly surprising result from the weekend was Trinity’s spirit scores. Given ultimate is a self refereed sport every team is graded on their “Spirit of the Game” in order to reward team’s who play fairly. Despite Trinity’s reputation for poor spirit in Ireland (a reputation which is quite the opposite abroad) the new spirit scoring system which is geared more towards competitive play resulted in Trinity being the most spirited club averaged across all teams in the two divisions. In the open division the first and second teams came second and third respectively whereas the women’s team came joint first with UCC, Trinity were deemed winners though due to finishing higher in the tournament.
