THE ALL-IRELAND CLUB camogie final is coming at a good time for Eoghan Rua forward, and Irish hockey international, Katie Mullan.<\/p>\n
\n Eoghan Rua’s Katie Mullan.\n<\/p>\n
If the season had been any longer, she might not have been able to keep committing to both teams. On the day she speaks to the media \u2014 one week out from her Derry club\u2019s junior A decider against Clanmaurice of Kerry \u2014 she\u2019s in the middle of a training camp with the Ireland hockey team.<\/p>\n
The Green Army has a hectic few months ahead as they prepare for the women\u2019s hockey world cup in July.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tight operation, no doubt, but Mullan is blessed to have the support of her colleagues in both squads to keep all the plates spinning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sitting in a changing room on Irish camp right now,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m playing pretty full on hockey at the minute. We\u2019re in camp now for three days and we were away in France two weeks ago. We were flying to France the day after the Ulster final, so it\u2019s pretty tough to manage but it\u2019s been good too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just manage it very well with my club coach. The good thing is that the girls in my club team are very understanding, so the main thing for me is to get out on the wall ball with camogie. I go to training and do a lot more of the skill based stuff because I\u2019m getting my physical training in with the hockey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s just a real understanding and collaboration, which again, for to support any athlete or any kid playing multiple sports, you need that collaboration between coaches which I\u2019ve had a fantastic experience of the last couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up until the end of last year, hockey was Mullan\u2019s one and only sport. She played camogie as a youngster, and combined it with hockey for a time. But as she grew up and the opportunity to be a dual athlete became less accessible to her, she could only focus on one.<\/p>\n
Sticking with hockey proved to be a fruitful one. Mullan captained her country through an amazing World Cup campaign in 2018 which turned hockey into a household favourite for a short spell. Ireland went into that tournament as the second-lowest ranked side, but emerged as silver medalists after reaching the final.<\/p>\n
The following year, Mullan\u2019s Ireland qualified for the Olympics for the first time after a dramatic qualifier against Canada in Donnybrook.<\/p>\n
But last October, while attending the Derry intermediate camogie county final where her Eoghan Rua side defeated Newbridge, she felt something stir in her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just really got an itch to be back playing camogie,\u201d Mullan recalls about resuming her playing career with Eoghan Rua who were back-to-back All-Ireland intermediate champions in 2010 and 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that was when the wee seed was planted, and it\u2019s been quite a good year and quite a good run. It\u2019s in the last month that it\u2019s sort of really clashed for me, but with an understanding coach, with it being an All-Ireland, he\u2019s been very supportive in that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if it was going on for much longer, I\u2019m not sure I could have managed it but, yeah, very understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been quite an intense few years with hockey and going away and speaking to my coach about that, I sort of asked if I could go back and play a bit of camogie. A lot of the girls I had played with 10, 11 years ago are still there playing for that team. A lot of them are my close friends so he was quite supportive of me doing that from a mental perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut also, I suppose, after the Olympics and sort of the comedown from the Olympics, and a break in our Irish hockey training programme after the qualifier in October, I was quite keen to do something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n Katie Mullan with her silver medal after the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Source: Morgan Treacy\/INPHO<\/p>\n
In the time that Mullan has been away from the sport, she has noticed some changes in the way camogie is played. The endurance levels have increased and the game has become more physical.<\/p>\n
Tactically, it\u2019s a different sport to her now too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think camogie players are a lot less stuck in positions, so you\u2019re covering an awful lot more ground and you\u2019re not necessarily in a little 10\u00d710 yard zone, which was maybe the case the last time I played.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I know from a skills perspective, I was a huge one for dropping the hurl and getting the handpass away from my right hand. So, I\u2019ve been blown up a few times for that just because it sort of happens instinctively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls are having to give out to me a bit for that, but it\u2019s loads of fun and even just bringing across a small number of ideas from the game of hockey into the world of camogie, the girls have been super receptive, and I\u2019ve enjoyed that too.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s so much crossover [between hockey and camogie] from things within a team culture and high performance environment that don\u2019t even relate to the specific skills of the game, that I think can be transferred to many different sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic and the most important thing is that I\u2019m getting to play with girls I grew up in the club with, and I\u2019m getting to pull on the club jersey with them again, which is very special to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eoghan Rua have just the week to prepare for the All-Ireland final. Their semi-final meeting with Roscommon\u2019s Athleague was originally scheduled for 19 February, but the inclement weather forced a postponement until last Saturday.<\/p>\n
It was a tough arm wrestle for much of the contest, with Eoghan Rua leading by just two points in the 15th minute of the second half. But the Ulster club managed to pull away and sign off with a 1-12 to 0-6 win to send them through to the decider.<\/p>\n
The team are in good shape after that battle, and explains that travelling the short distance to Letterkenny for the Athleague game has improved their recovery time before meeting Clanmaurice this weekend.<\/p>\n
Mullan has said in the past that she always wanted to go back to play camogie at some point, but she believed that it would be after she finished up with playing hockey for Ireland.<\/p>\n
Taking the decision to make an earlier return to the sport could result in another All-Ireland crown for Eoghan Rua.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought it would be something I could do while still playing international hockey.<\/p>\n