“Goalkeepers can’t win a game, but they can lose one”

On tonight’s Women’s League of Ireland Podcast on FinalWhistle.ie, Treaty United’s Canadian goalkeeper Anne-Marie Ulliac expressed her excitment to have joined the Limerick side this season.

The Edmonton shotstopper previously played in the US & Canadian Collegiate system with Bishop’s University Gaiters, Western Kentucky University, and Adelphi University Panthers in the USA.

She spent last season in the top-flight of Portuguese women’s football, Liga BPI, featuring with Clube Atletico Ouriense. “The past few games have been really great, ever since we got our first win of the season, since then we have really been on an upward trend.”

That win she referenced was Treaty’s 2-1 win away to Sligo Rovers on March 25, which was followed by a 1-1 draw at home against Cork the following week.

A goalless draw at Markets Field with DLR Waves in April was sandwiched by a few narrow defeats to Shelbourne, Galway, and most recently a late goal saw them fall 1-0 to current league leaders Peamount United.

Following back-to-back heavy defeats against Shamrock Rovers and Athlone Town in March it looked like it might have been another disastrous campaign for Treaty after last season’s paltry collection of two points.

However, Ulliac said, “It has been amazing to see the turnaround since we had those couple of rough games towards the start of the season.”

“All of us took a step back and thought a lot about what we wanted to get out of the season and how we were going to get there and what we needed to change and re-evaluated what each of us could be doing differently and then came back together and brought out a better game the next weekend.

‘I think it was a really good learning experience and I would rather get that out of the way at the start of the season than late in the season.”

Prior to her arrival Treaty had conceded 105 goals last season, scoring just five times as they finished rock bottom on two points. This season they have already collected 5 points from their opening nine matches.

“I didn’t know too much about Treaty before I made the decision to come over here but obviously after I decided I looked into them a bit more.

‘I didn’t only see the results from last season, but I also saw that it is a really new club in the league and that is exciting.

That means there is not too many years of bad habits or whatever you want to call it. It was just the one season that I was looking at from the year before.

‘I saw a look of room for growth too and as a goalkeeper, you always want to feel that want you are doing is contributing to your team’s success.

What’s that saying? Goalkeepers can’t win you a game, but a goalkeeper can lose a game. So, you want to be helping your team win a game at least.”

Recently there has been a big influx of players arriving from Canada with a number of them plying their trade at Treaty United as well as several more featuring around the rest of Ireland. The two nations face each in the group stage of this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

“In Canada, we don’t have a professional league on the Women’s side, we’ve never had a professional league. We don’t have a national amateur league, so the highest level of soccer is summer leagues across Canada, sort of within each province.

‘So that’s only four months of the year of soccer really and if you want to progress to a higher level you have to find a way to go abroad so you can play in one of these more year-round seasons and you can train more frequently.”

Speaking about facing off against her fellow Canadians like Galway defender Jamie Erikson who she played with during high school in Edmonton, she said, “I really like competing against people you know, I like intense rivalries, I like that close competition, and it sort of becomes a bit more of a chess match.

‘I know Jamie is not a forward, but she does get up and try and score on goal a lot, so you are always trying to get in other people’s heads as a goalkeeper.

Which is very fun. Ulliac also said that she had a very brief stint playing Gaelic in Edmonton during Covid, “Some of the cities in Canada have Gaelic clubs so I got a little bit of an introduction to that, and it was very interesting.

There is a lot of translatable skills between soccer goalkeeping and Gaelic, so if any Gaelic teams are recruiting, I am available.”