New Tribes Water Polo Club is making a big splash

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

TRIBES Water Polo Club may only be in existence three years or so but already its teams have begun to dominate competitions at various age levels nationally, while a significant number of the club’s players now also form the core of Ireland’s underage sides.

Founded by the Mooney sisters, Deborah and Amanda, the story of Tribes is no doubt a remarkable one and both women readily admit they never envisaged the club could have grown so quickly in so short a length of time.

It all started three years ago when, observing the large number of girls leaving swimming as a sport in their mid teens, the twins decided to find a viable alternative to entice these teenagers to stay involved and remain physically active.

“There is a provision for a boys’ water polo club there with Corrib but there was nothing for girls,” says Amanda, a swimming teacher and coaches’ tutor who has also served as Chairperson of the National Educational and Development Committee for Swim Ireland. “So, we decided to put on an Easter Camp in 2010 to see if there was any interest. We had 40 children who attended and we decided we would give it a go.”

Her sister Deborah Heery, who is Club Chairperson, takes up the story. “We finished the Easter camp and parents were ringing asking was it (a club) going to start in September. So, we said why not? That September, we would have started with kids from the ages of 10 to 16, just to get us going. The very first week we had about 29 and we couldn’t believe it because we only needed 16 to get the club going.”

The two women, who were aided at the Easter Camp by Irene Geary, Sam Knight and Michael Heery, set to work, both undertaking a course in water polo, with Amanda also travelling to Scotland to further her education on the sport.

“Water polo for women has been around for a very long time in Ireland, going back to the ‘70s, but in Galway, it had been years and years since the game had been played. You are probably talking about the ‘70s. So, it had gone out of Galway a long time ago.”

Of course, Corrib Water Polo Club, which caters for males, has flown the flag locally in recent times but because of its success and growing numbers, it has not the pool hours to expand to include girls or women’s water polo.

That said, they have been hugely supportive of Tribes, providing equipment for the cash-strapped club when it was starting up, while the advice from people like Shane Heskin was pivotal in steering Tribes in the right direction in the early days.

“So, we approached Leisureland to get an initial hour and, basically, we pushed the ‘Women in Sport’ initiative at the time, saying that we were trying to encourage more women into sport,” continues Amanda. “We discovered afterwards – and this wasn’t the reason we started – that there is an 80% drop-out of girls from all sports in Ireland between the ages of 13 to 15.”

One of the reasons for this, Amanda believes, is that only a few individuals will ever make the podium with the others becoming disillusioned by the lack of opportunity for success. She says they identify their success and failure in the pool with their self worth and this should not be the case.

Still, Tribes Water Polo Club has proven if there is an alternative there for teenage girls, many will avail of it. The fact that it is a team sport also offers a different perspective for young girls, who do not become as hung up about winning or losing but rather focus on the journey.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.