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It was a conversation with a family friend that prompted Anna O’Flanagan into action. She had been told about the men’s team who were heading to Paris to represent Ireland in the World Roundnet Championship and she wondered why there was no women’s side.
After all, roundnet — also known as spikeball — was generally a game played by both genders, equally.
Having been told that there wasn’t any Irish women’s team, she decided to do something about it. She gathered a few players, including her two daughters and niece, and registered for the championships, meaning Ireland will be one of 26 nations with a women’s team competing at the tournament which begins in the French capital today.
Roundnet, or Spikeball, is a form of 2 v 2 volleyball invented by Jeff Krunrek in 1989
‘This was back at the end of June, so it has been a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest,’ says O’Flanagan who will be the manager of the first women’s team to represent Ireland at these championships. Having initially had a squad of six, they will be travelling over with the 12 that every other competing nation will have, the novices augmented by two experienced players in Melaine Hu, a French woman who lives in Dublin and has been playing on the Irish men’s team, and Ashling Hinchely, a US-born Irish citizen who only in the past week relocated to Ireland for work.
‘We have been starting from scratch. We have gone from getting a squad of six together, which is now up to 12, which means that we can use substitutes for the games, and gone from being complete novices learning the game and now heading to the world championships. It is a bit like Cool Runnings meets Dodgeball meets Bend It Like Beckham,’ O’Flanagan says.
Having been training every day for the past few weeks to ensure that they are up to scratch for the games, a few of the Irish players had planned on going to Electric Picnic this weekend. But there have been assurances made that between the fun and frolics in Stradbally, they will be putting the time in preparing for what awaits them in Paris.
Roundnet is a form of 2 v 2 volleyball invented by Jeff Knurek in 1989, where the teams stand on either side of a small trampoline-like net.
Each team gets three hits to get the miniature volleyball (spikeball) to bounce off the trampoline to the other team, creating a volley.
The game went through a growth spurt both here and around the world during Covid, with roundnet communities popping up in Limerick, Cork, Belfast, Galway as well as Dublin. However, the game has gone through a lull in recent years and has only been revived recently by Ben Marnell after he started playing the game again when he was in Australia.
‘When I was over there, I met the president of the International Roundnet Federation and he convinced me to start up the game again here,’ Marnell says. ‘To be honest, at the moment, our playing base is just in Dublin, but we are hoping to spread the word and get the community growing again around the country.’
The Ireland team practising for the World Championships which are taking place in Paris
There are currently around 80 active roundnet players in Ireland, and around 140 members of the community. Marnell is part of the men’s team who will be competing among 33 other nations in Paris and the goal is to finish top of the bottom seeding bracket.
‘The game is big in some other countries. The US, Canada and Germany would be considered the powerhouses. In Germany now, they regularly run tournaments where there are over 1,000 players. And the game itself has got pro status now in nine countries,’ Marnell says.
‘But as we only recently revived the game here, our goal for the worlds is to finish top of our bracket. There are five seeding brackets, each has six teams except the bottom one, which we are part of, which has 10. So, our aim is to finish top of that bracket.’
The sport made some headlines last year when injury-prone British tennis player Emma Raducanu credited it for helping her movement as she battled back from injury and Volleyball Ireland have used it as an introduction to the more established game for some transition year students.
The Ireland Women's team that will make its debut at the World Championships in Paris
But while the goal next week in Paris is to be competitive in some games, it is also about having fun. ‘This is a wholesome and inclusive sport where you can go anywhere in the world and send out a message and get involved in a pick-up game,’ Marnell says. ‘That’s why we want to spread the word here’
Those sentiments are echoed by the players on the Irish women’s team, who started from scratch during the summer, and will now be representing Ireland on the global stage.
‘The community has been very welcoming to us and our players,’ O’Flanagan says. ‘They want to grow the sport, that is their goal, so any new players, any new members, they have been very encouraging and helping us along. It really has been an inclusive environment.’
For those who want to keep an eye on both Irish teams in Paris next weekend, the world championships will be livestreamed by the International Roundnet Federation with commentary, and there will also be updates on their social media pages, including Instagram.
