NEXT MONTH AMEE-LEIGH Murphy Crowe will finally become an Olympian, having taken the first steps on her Olympic journey 10 long years ago.
The Tipperary native was first capped by the Ireland Sevens in 2014, and even in the early days of her Sevens career, representing Ireland on the world’s biggest sporting stage was always the goal.
Yet the road to Paris has been far from straightforward. Murphy Crowe was part of the squads that missed out on qualification for the 2016 and 2020 Games before last year the Ireland women finally got over the line, booking their place in Paris at a World Series event in Toulouse last summer.
“It’s come full circle from not even being able to win a game throughout a World Series event, then qualifying for one of the biggest Games of our lives,” says Murphy-Crowe, who has established herself as one of the brightest talents on the Sevens circuit.
Murphy-Crowe was a talented athlete growing up, which will be no surprise to anyone who has watched the 29-year-old ripping through defences with a rugby ball in her hand. The 100 metres and long jump were her disciplines of choice before deciding to try rugby in her mid-teens, after a brief spell playing football.
The rugby career didn’t take long to ignite, Murphy-Crowe playing her way into the Munster U18s and Ireland U19s before being drafted into the Sevens programme. She’s moved between programmes over the years to play for the Ireland 15s, but Sevens has remained her prime focus.
Yet while the Sevens programme has been a major focus of the IRFU – and in particular outgoing high performance director David Nucifora – it’s yet to properly capture the imagination of the wider Irish public. The hope is that Paris proves a turning point. Both the mens and womens squads are travelling to the Games with realistic medal hopes and moving from online streams to primetime slots on RTÉ brings with it the potential for players to become household names.
For all the money that’s been pumped into the programme, nothing would boost the profile of Sevens quite like Olympic success.
“Knowing that RTÉ are going to have it on TV, anyone can come into their sitting room now and just pop it on,” says Murphy-Crowe.
“Like, we all know when we’re at home, everyone throws on the Olympic Games, whichever sport is on that day, it’s just on the television and the television is just running.
“So it’s going to be great to see that exposure, like someone might just turn it on and watch it for seven minutes and that’s only a half of one of our games.
And then, you know, you could inspire some young boy or girl to actually want to be an Olympian for Ireland, which again is the purpose of our programme and the purpose of why we play this sport is just to inspire the next generation.
“I know I’ve been inspired through Sonia O’Sullivan, through Katie Taylor, through Kellie Harrington, through the Irish hockey girls, they are all inspirations that I took throughout watching the Olympic Games and it’s just an honour that we now get to be that inspiration that people look up to.”
Murphy Crowe is conscious of soaking up the experience in Paris but also feels there is a responsibility that comes with representing your country at the Olympics.
“The Athletes Village is going to be absolutely amazing, you’re going to see complete superstars over there, but we are one of them so we will be amongst them and we just have to get in there and accept that and embrace it and know that you are now one of the best sports people in this world. It’s a very small percentage.
“And I do believe that we’ll perform heading into Paris,” she continues.
“We’ve done so much preparation and there’s still more to come, we still have a European leg to play in Hamburg.
“I think if you don’t believe, you’re missing something, you’re missing some element in the game because you’ve got to believe in yourself, you’ve got to believe in your players, you’ve got to believe in the game plan, and I solely believe in that, in believing in the team. I always do.”
And yet the Olympics will be just one of many milestone in Murphy Crowe’s life this year. Two weeks after the Games she has a hen party booked in ahead of her wedding in November, where Ireland teammates Lucy Rock and Stacey Flood will be bridesmaids alongside Murphy Crowe’s sisters Kelsie and Lily Ella.
Looking a little further down the line, Murphy Crowe isn’t ruling out a return to 15s for next year’ Women’s Rugby World Cup, but insists Sevens is the “sole focus” for now.
And understandably so. While the squad have seen results tail off in recent months, a first ever gold medal won on the Perth leg of the World Series in January is a reminder of what this group have the potential to achieve, and will serve as motivation heading to Paris.
“That benchmark is now set, we know exactly how it feels to sing the anthem in a final, we know exactly how to play a top team, how to beat them and knowing that is extra special. Like, it’s in us, it’s within the group, it’s within the backroom staff, it’s within our game plan.
“It comes back to just knowing we’ve done it. We just have to make sure that we actually stick to the process and how we’ve trained and then how we bring that into our game.”
