Hello everyone.

My name is Mark Earley and I’m an Irish player based in Dublin. I’m delighted to be reporting from Prague for The Huddle and am looking forward to what is shaping up to be an incredible week for all involved.

So where to start…well, I’ve been playing Ultimate for 10 years now and it’s still as much fun as it was at the beginning. I began playing in college in Dublin and have been playing non-stop since then. I’ve played club, hat and major tournaments across Europe and spent a year playing in Australia (where I found the standard to be phenomenal!). I’ve captained Ireland on a few occasions and relish matching up against the best teams in the world. This is my first World Clubs Championships and I’m really excited to see how it will differ from a WUGC.

In Prague I’ll be representing Ireland in the Open Division with Dublin Ultimate. The Open division is overflowing with talent from all around the globe so it’s going to be a pretty interesting week. Lots of European teams will feel like they have something to prove, especially playing in their own backyard but its hard to see past the strength and depth of the US and Japanese teams. The Australians are likely to have a thing or two to say come the end of the week as well!

From my team’s point of view – we’ve had a good build up with two tough tournaments in the UK under our belts along with months of training and fitness. We lost 4 players due to work/injury in the fortnight before the rosters were finalised leaving us with only 14 but we’re confident that we’ve put in the hard yards on the track that will stand to us. We’ve been seeded behind a number of teams we think we can beat and a recent win versus Raganarok has given us even more belief. We’ve worked hard for this week and are really hoping to take a couple of scalps. The team is made up of many Irish internationals and a few newer, younger players who will be playing at this level for their first time. We can’t wait to get to the Czech Republic and soak up the atmosphere, play some tough games and enjoy ourselves too.

This summer is a big summer for Irish Ultimate with 2 teams playing at WUCC – Dublin Ultimate (Open) and Little Miss Sunshine (Women), a team in each division at the World Under 23 Ultimate Frisbee Championships in Florence (Italy) and a Juniors Open team at the World Junior Championships in Heilbronn (Germany). The sport is growing every year here in Ireland and having been part of the Irish Flying Disc Association’s committee for many years its really amazing to see how much growth has taken place. Irish teams have progressed from partying hard to playing hard and are now capable of doing both! The standard is being driven higher by players all around the country from Belfast to Cork and back. It’s an exciting time to be a part of the Irish Ultimate scene and hopefully the two teams in Prague will be able to do the recent growth proud.

Worlds is a massive tournament and we’re really lucky to be able to represent Ireland at it. Dublin Ultimate will be working hard to do as well as we can and once the games are over we’ll be at the centre of the party too. We are looking forward to playing against new teams, meeting new players and doing our best. With under two weeks to go, the excitement is palpable.

Finally, if you want to get in touch for any reason please drop me a mail at earley.mark(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Take care and hope to see you in Prague,

Mark