Luck of the Irish strikes in the Lucky Country
Image: Table Tennis Australia Facebook
BY LLOYD GORMAN
NATURALLY ENOUGH WHILE SHE WAS IN TOKYO, IRELAND’S CHEF DE MISSION PATRICIA HEBERLE CAST AN INTERESTED EYE IN THE DIRECTION OF HER FELLOW COUNTRYMEN AND WOMEN ON TEAMAUS. SHE SAW A REFLECTION OF HER OWN SITUATION AS AN AUSSIE IN THE SERVICE OF IRELAND. “I was able to catch up with some of the Australian team and people I knew and some of the athletes I’ve worked with at different times,” she said. “But what was interesting was that the Australian team had a couple of Irish guys. One of them was there at the beginning who set up the internet, IT and communications for the Australians, and he came over and said hello. Then there was John Murphy, the coach of the Australian Table Tennis Team, which I found absolutely amazing. He came up to me and wanted to swap a pin, he had an Australian pin and he wanted an Irish pin. “They were amazed that I was working with the Irish and I said, how come you’ve got jobs with the Australians, its no different really but that’s the world we live in. There are wonderful opportunities in sport, everything is multicultural 12 | THE IRISH SCENE
and you’ve got Irish guys working for Australia and you’ve got an Australian Chef de Mission for Ireland.” About the same time that she was made Chef de Mission for Ireland, the Irishman had news of his own. “John Murphy very recently informed Table Tennis Ireland (ITT) that he has accepted the position of National Coach of Australia from October 1st,” ITT said in a press release, dated August 2018. Murphy had just accepted a revised contract as national coach for Ireland when the Australian offer (National Head Coach Able Bodied) came up and was “an opportunity that he could not realistically refuse”. Conn Higgins, TTI Performance Director described him as a very talented and expert coach and that the organisation was very disappointed to lose him. “Over the past seven years he has brought great vision and passion to the job of national coach and raised our international profile,” Mr Higgins said. “While we regret John’s decision, we understand this is a great opportunity for him and wish him the very best as head coach of table tennis Australia and thank him for his wonderful contribution to Irish table tennis.” While they parted ways, the links were not broken and in January of this year Murphy was one of “two of
