Nicole McAtamney: A county player enjoying the balance

Nicole McAtamney has eyes on Antrim’s league final this weekend. A wife and mother of two, she balances training with a hectic life but always finds time for camogie. Michael McMullan went to meet her…

WHEN Nicole McAtamney runs out at Abbottstown on Saturday it’s all about camogie. The next ball. Staying unbeaten. A quest for silverware. A second Clare challenge in seven days.

Before that, she’ll be spinning more plates thatnanyone in the Antrim dressing room.

Her oldest son is Joe. He’s six. Dan has just turned one. Her husband Declan is flat to the mat running a string of butcher’s shops.

Life is busy. They just make it work. It was the same last weekend when Antrim travelled to Ennis for the dress rehearsal.

Sitting in her classroom in Coleraine’s Loreto College, where she was a pupil, Nicole paints a picture of life mixing parenthood, work and playing at inter-county level.

In her sixth year as an RE teacher, she is also coming to the end of a spell as the temporary Head of Year 8. Exam season is any school’s bread and butter. It’s getting close.

Alongside Eddie McCloskey and Aileen McManus, she coaches the Loreto camogs. There is something special about that too, anticipating if their promising junior team can push on.

It’s just after three o’clock. Hometime. She’ll grab a bite to eat. It’s that or not eat at all. Collect their sons. Sort their dinner. Joe’s homework. Get them tucked into bed before heading out the door to training.

With an away game coming up, three days’ worth of clothes for Joe and Dan need laid out. The arrangements for any lifting and laying.

Declan’s customers won’t have any thought for Ennis or Abbottstown or unbeaten runs or camogie. His working life continues.

While the rest of the Antrim team board the bus, Nicole won’t. She drives. There is the security of always having a car in case of an emergency spin home.

Katie Molloy will often be her co-pilot. They can leave later on the way down and earlier on the way home. Every hour of family time is important.

This is only a snapshot. This is before any practice, playing, preparation or conditioning comes into play. Never mind fighting for a place on a team where everyone is chosen on merit.

The overall goal is getting to Croke Park when it matters, training is top drawer. Reputations count for nothing. The next ball counts. Nicole is one player.

She is lucky to have three important elements in her corner.

A supportive family. That’s numero uno. She couldn’t do it without them. Support structures an average fan won’t even know exist.

An understanding management team is number two, but no less important. Since she returned at Christmas, they said they’d meet her half way.

The kids and family would always come first. If she missed a warmup because Joe needed dropped off at coaching in Dunloy on the way, so be it. A sickness and the flexibility card was always within reach. Otherwise, she was all in.

That leads into the third point. An absolute love of camogie. The very mention of it and her eyes light up. The juice is worth the extra squeeze. Well worth it.

***

GROWING up, there was music and Irish Dancing. Netball would follow in her days as a pupil in Loreto and later at university in St Mary’s Belfast.

It always came back to camogie. She recently was coaxed to take up the flute and tin whistle again to give the school traditional group a pull out for a St Patrick’s day gig.

The grá is still there and a hope to keep at it. There just wasn’t the time in her earlier years. Not that she has much now.

“In Dunloy, whenever you’re training, it’s one or the other,” she said of her earlier musical days.

“You can’t be going to music a couple of nights. They would always have clashed so I do remember having to make a decision.”

Camogie and the great outdoors won. She recalls the days on Antrim underage teams and winning Ulster titles alongside Lucia McNaughton, a constant companion all the way to senior level.

There was a spell away when Joe was born before manager Elaine Dowds was on the phone, asking about a return ahead of 2021.

It was a yes and Antrim went all the way to lifting the All-Ireland Intermediate. From that team, Caitrín Dobbin, Róisín McCormick, Maeve Kelly, Amy Boyle and Caitríona Graham are also still on board.

“My granny Eileen is probably my biggest supporter”, Nicole (née O’Neill) laughs, thinking back to their final win over Kilkenny at Croke Park.

CROKER TIME…Nicole McAtamney in action during Antrim’s 2021 All-Ireland final win over Kilkenny

She pulls out a photograph sent to her by Emma McMullan at the time, taken from an upper deck of the Hogan Stand, at an emotional moment below. Nicole walked all the way up to Granny Cochrane’s seat for an almighty hug. A memory that means more than words can say.

“I suppose as she’s got older, they loved taking her places,” Nicole said. “She comes to all the matches.”

Nicole is Robert and Elaine’s oldest of five. Her brother Eoin hurls with club and county. Sean is another brother. She has a sister Orla. Bobby, the youngest, is in Year 12 at Loreto.

She ponders for her earliest camogie moment before settling on the Ciara McLaughlin U-12 Memorial Cup in Dunloy.

“I remember getting to play it young,” she recalls. “I was so excited because I was getting to play with the girls that were older, I was maybe eight or nine.”

When Dunloy u-18s were short a goalkeeper for an upcoming final, she answered the call and remembers Tom McLean asking her into the club seniors in her mid-teens. Not much has changed. It’s wall to wall camogie.

With Antrim, and a pooling together of talent, there was a positive mindset.

“With that group around you, you just think we can go so far. You actually feel that you’re unstoppable,” she said.

“We were just getting better and better and better. I just remember thinking we’re going as far as we can here. And we did.”

Croke Park and winning there was special but camogie was put to one side. It wasn’t the end, just another press of the pause button as Dan came into the world.

***

WITH Dunloy’s 2023 championship coming around, Nicole had a hurl in her hand again, within eight weeks of giving birth to Dan, for the last quarter of a semi-final.

Camogie was a focus again. It was a chance for free time in the evenings, an outlet, thanks in no small part to the support structures around her.

“Between my mammy, Declan and also his mammy, they would be very good,” she said.

“They are all very good at looking after them. They all kind of pick up the pieces.”

By the start of 2024, it was time to step up the camogie preparations, enlisting for a gym programme under Anna Henry and Lucia Dowds at The Yard gym near Portglenone.

FULL FOCUS…Antrim’s Nicole McAtamney takes aim in their win over Down. Picture: Michael Corcoran

While it was physically tough, It was the mental challenge as much as anything. Could she get back to that level?

County camogie was parked with a full focus of getting back to the level of playing for Dunloy.

“The amount of people that you have behind you that make it possible, it wouldn’t be possible without them,” she said, recalling a fitness test with Dunloy.

“Anne McGilligan and Oonagh Elliott were holding Dan; he was only about six months old.

“They Literally just walked up and down the pitch with him.”

It was the same with Elaine Dowds in Antrim, she’d often be walking up a sideline holding Joe’s hand when he accompanied his mother to training.

The 2024 club season came and went without any real thought of a return to Antrim until a visit from manager Carl McCormick on the mouth of Christmas.

“It’s funny, I was actually in the middle of cooking and cleaning and the wains are in the backyard,” she recalls.

Not exactly the lifestyle of someone ready to commit to the serious business of trying to win an All-Ireland.

He laid out his cards and left breathing space to think. The management would work with her family commitments. They believed there was plenty left to offer and her experience would be invaluable in Croke Park.

“He was so lovely in his approach of it,” Nicole said of the visit. “It just really made me stop and think. It gave me that bit of faith back in myself.

“They’re going to judge if you’re good enough to come back and they thought that you could fit in again. I think there’s so much doubt in your head”.

Having children. Would the fitness levels be there? Would there be enough hours in the week?

It was time to ask Declan and her family support group. They consensus was unanimous. It wasn’t a case of why would she? More, why would she not? There was plenty to give and they’d find a way to facilitate.

“There was very little hesitation, to be honest,” she admits. “Within a day, I was like, I’m definitely going back in.”

By that time, the Antrim squad were a month into a conditioning phase. There was still that petrified feeling of doubt. Would she still actually be up to it?

Conditioning Coach, Cormac Hannon, put her mind at ease. There would be a phasing in approach. Everyone’s preparation in the panel was tailored. Rest when it was needed. Ramped up on other cases. Niggles would be managed.

“It was the same with Carl, Martin (Coulter) and Joey (Quinn),” Nicole said of the management team.

Everything was taken care of. Even on a night when she rocked up without socks, trying to squeeze on her son Joe’s to get through the session.

“I was running down the pitch and my ankles were out,” Nicole said with another smile.

“Joey said I needed to watch myself. Next thing, he got me his work socks out of the van, these big black things. He covers all the angles.”

It’s a happy camp. The players from the 2021 team, merged by the younger generation. Club rivalry is parked at the gate. It’s all about Antrim and having a competitive environment.

“It’s a lovely team to be a part of, it has gelled very well,” he points out. But why?

“It’s a group of people who all want the same thing. I think the management have been extremely fair.

“They’ve given everybody their game time. Everybody’s there to better each other. And, it’s competitive.”

The players never know what the team is going to be from one game to the next. They’ll pick through and the 15 names are always there on merit.

“We’ve such an age range,” she adds. “You’ve girls literally just up from minor and girls that do have that bit of experience. There are the Loughgiel girls, who have the experience of all playing in Croke Park together for so long.”

She uses the example of her traveling partner Katie Molloy. A newbie, taking to it like a duck to water. Eimear Johnston is small in stature but came on to punch holes against Limerick.

Established players like Róisín McCormick and Maeve Kelly will ramp up the competition for a starting jersey when they make a return. There is also a confidence that comes from mixing it with the best from other counties. It’s the same in their own training games.

“There’s no training session that you don’t come away from that you’ve busted your gut,” Nicole said.

“You’re out marking Amy Boyle and players like that at training. Caoimhe McNaughton is a perfect example. She is hard-hitting and there’s no bye ball there. It’s dog eat dog on the pitch at training.

“You’re only bettering yourself,” Nicole adds, comfortable in her own decision to have made the return.

Carl’s visit. Her family support. Her sessions in the gym with Lucia Dowds and Anna Henry. Cormac assuring her she’d fit right back in.

Speaking before last weekend’s win over Clare, there was a hope to top the league. Dead rubber game or not. Four Cassie McArthur goals ensured their win. Another box ticked.

Keeping the winning streak intact is something to target. It’s on the line again. It’s a repeat dose of Clare. There’s a title on the line and Antrim must deliver.

“Ulster is a big topic of conversation on the panel at the minute,” she adds, beginning to sum up. “We have Down straight away then you’ve obviously Derry who won the All-Ireland Intermediate last year.

“We want to give Ulster a really good rattle and aim to get to Croke Park. We’re so capable of it, it’s just about holding everything together and keeping the dedication going from now to then but it’s definitely within reach.”

Antrim have the tools to go the distance but there are plenty of twists in the road ahead.

Nicole McAtamney will have more than the rest. But she’s not in it alone. Her teammates, her family, her friends, the management are in her corner. It’s about finding the right balance.