Dodgeball...and the Cavan connection
Most who've watched the 2004 sports comedy film 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story' recall with precise timing 'the 5 D's of dodgeball'- “Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge again.”
The tenants espoused are much the same as in the real world, where the World Dodgeball Championships are set to take place in Austria from August 11-17.
And yet despite the size and scale of the upcoming tournament, which will see more than 30 countries compete in men's, women's and mixed events across two distinct codes- Cloth and Foam ball- most have only ever heard of the sport because of the film starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller.
Competing on the Irish team in Cloth will be Paul Coombes from Cavan Town, who has always had an interest in “niche” sports, and got into playing Dodgeball competitively when he first moved to live and work in Galway about eight years ago. There he opened the 'Meet Up' app which lists activities taking place in a local area and hit up a Dodgeball training session starting just as he finished work, a 10 minute cycle away.
“One of the biggest draws is the community you meet playing these sports,” explains Paul, who played baseball with the Cavan Comets, tried his hand at cricket, Ultimate Frisbee, tag rugby, flag football and many others.
Paul, who in the past also played more traditional sports such as soccer and gaelic football, loves the inclusivity of Dodgeball.
“It's a completely different vibe. It gets very competitive, and it's maybe not the players themselves, even at underage it's the parents and the coaches who get carried away too easily. It's not fun when that happens,” considers Paul who represented Ireland at the World Championships in Canada two years ago also. “But you take Dodgeball for instance and you'll get players who are really competitive and want to play seriously, even internationally, and alongside them you'll have a 30 year old gamer who has never picked up a ball until now but is giving it maximum effort and just having fun with it.”
It's estimated there are close to 70 million people who play Dodgeball globally, and the world championships have been taking place since 2016, with the sport officially recognised the following year by the Global Association of International Sports Federations.
The World Dodgeball Association is in the midst of putting a proposal together for the International Olympic Committee to have their sport added to a future games.
Ireland will be sending 36 players to Austria to compete across Cloth and Foam, which have two completely different rule sets. Ireland are ranked around sixth in the world across both codes combined. The USA are ranked number one in both, while Northern Ireland are ranked top in Cloth alone.
Each Dodgeball team has six players, who start by lining out on opposite sides of a rectangle roughly the size of a badminton court. There are five balls in play at any one time and the aim is to eliminate each member of the opposing team by either hitting them with or catching their ball in flight.
It's fast, frenetic, and filled with tactics.
“The three main things in Dodgeball are dodging, throwing, catching. Some people are all rounders, they can do everything,” says Paul, who switched his club allegiances to Dublin after moving to the Capital. “I'd be a bit of an all rounder, but my main skill is throwing. So my job is to stay alive in the game as best I can until my teammates can bring me into play to try and knock the other team's players out. Every single throw is a planned call, much like you'd see in American football, so you have to think on your feet, and be ready to react to whatever comes your way.”