Pricey members and associates,
The brand new rugby season is upon us and there may be loads of motion over the subsequent few weeks main into the AIL which commences on October seventh.
Our 1sts kick off the season subsequent Thursday, Aug seventeenth once we host UK touring staff, the Rams who play within the Nationwide one league in England.
The next week on Friday August twenty fifth our J1 are first up in aggressive motion away to Tullow (final season’s cities cup champions) within the semi-final of the Colm O’Shea cup (we’re the present holders of this trophy having defeated Terenure within the ultimate final season). The trophy commemorates one in every of our nice membership males Colm who was a vastly lively member of the membership and represented us on varied Leinster committees for a few years. There’s a bus heading all the way down to Tullow and we need to convey as many supporters as we will to cheer the staff on. Please contact Conor Nugent (086 0734635) in case you are all in favour of travelling on the bus.
The ultimate will probably be performed the next weekend and is provisionally mounted for Saturday 2nd September.
Our 1sts tackle St Mary’s within the Leinster senior cup of their first aggressive sport of the season on Saturday August twenty sixth. The fixture was initially scheduled for Lansdowne nonetheless with American Soccer on the town and Lansdowne Sports activities Park (Claremont) not but accessible, we now have conceded house benefit and the sport will now happen in Templeville Street.
In an effort to revive the Senior Cup the Leinster department goes to separate the beginning of the season for Senior groups into two separate competitions. The highest eight groups as per AIL ending positions will probably be within the Senior Cup with the remaining ten groups taking part in within the Senior League. The format is much like the way in which during which the Senior League has been organised in current seasons but it surely now prioritises the Senior Cup, which is able to hopefully garner a few of its misplaced status.
Within the Senior Cup the 4 groups in every of the 2 sections will play one another as soon as, and each part winners will then contest the Senior Cup Ultimate. The winner of the Senior Cup would be the Leinster qualifiers for the 2024-2025 Bateman Cup.
The sections are as follows:
| SECTION “A” | SECTION “B” |
| CLONTARF | TERENURE COLLEGE RFC |
| LANSDOWNE | DUBLIN UNIVERSITY |
| UCD | OLD BELVEDERE |
| ST MARY’S COLLEGE RFC | OLD WESLEY |
There was nice work happening behind the scenes with our senior squad. We now have seen the next gamers be a part of us :
- Rory Parata (Cornish Pirates)
- Jack Cooke (London Irish)
- Oscar Egan (Queens College)
- George Kenny (Trinity)
- Lucas Culliton (Wanderers)
- Hardus Van Eaden (Navan)
- Grant Palmer (Enniscorthy)
Steven Walshe, Tom Gavigan and Henry Godson return from journeys abroad to additional bolster our squad while Barry Fitzpatrick additionally returns from a while out of the sport and Tom Roche returns from time spent with the nationwide sevens squad. Our Head of Participant Registration Noel Boyle has been very busy certainly and our honest thanks goes out to him.
We even have quite a few our U20’s graduating to the senior membership resembling Tom Barry, Luke Callinan, Cathal Eddy to call however a couple of.
Declan Fassbender continues as our 1st XV head coach ably assisted by Phil Horan (forwards coach), Mark Flanagan (lineout coach), Damien McCabe (Backs coach) and Charlie Doel (assistant coach). Our energy and conditioning coach Dan Moore can even be assisted by Bryan Mollen, while we welcome Aisling Frawley as our senior physiotherapist. Our intention is to help our gamers in the absolute best method and be certain that participant welfare is on the coronary heart of every thing we do.
Mark McMahon and his U20 coaches headed by Rhys Ruddock are doing an important job getting ready for the season forward and there will probably be extra particulars of their squad of gamers as we get nearer to the beginning of their season.
Our U’20’s teaching staff is as follows:
Head Coach: Rhys Ruddock
Assistant Coach: Ross McKeever
Assistant Coach: Richie Allen
Assistant Coach: Adam Curry
Power & Conditioning: Luke Thompson & Bryan Mollen
We now have some very proficient groups and gamers representing the membership this season. Let’s do our greatest to get out and help them each time and wherever we will.
Thanks
Stephen Rooney
President
2023/24