Back in 2012, Terenure College RFC weren’t exactly on an upward trajectory. They were a mid-table club in the middle tier of the Energia All-Ireland League, namely Division 2A. They couldn’t have become more ho-hum if they’d tried.
By their own admission, they were annoying the neighbours with their late-night socialising and their relationship with the Terenure College was not as umbilical as it could have been. They resolved to do something about this.
A meeting was held to ask simply: ‘What are we? Are we a rugby club?’ It took a few more meetings to generate agreement and momentum, but the great thing about having 120 people in attendance was that there were plenty of volunteers. They called themselves the 2020 group, in recognition of their vision to install floodlights.
They reached out to the community, to local businesses and to the school.
A key appointment was promoting James Blaney, from the ‘Nure clan of Blaney hookers, to the role of head coach in 2012. Blaney, who had played with Leinster and Munster as well as Ireland A, had been as player/assistant coach and then assistant coach over the previous six seasons.
Nothing generates momentum quite like winning and Terenure immediately topped Division 2A in the 2012-13 season with 15 victories out of 17.
The following season, 2013-14, they cut a swathe through Division 1B, winning all 18 matches to ensure back-to-back promotions.
With 1A status they became a more attractive proposition for players moving to Dublin or coming out of the school, and their own players became their best recruitment drivers.
Their rivals claim that Terenure pay their players. Terenure adamantly maintain otherwise, that they have an expenses budget which is smaller than rivals. But they do freely admit that they have created an old school network of businesses to help their players find jobs.
Jordan Coghlan joining last season, much to the chagrin of Clontarf given he played under-age rugby and cricket with many of his Clontarf mates, was a case in point.
Terenure persuaded him to listen to them and put together a work plan which led to some job interviews, on foot of which Coghlan ended up working with an American software company, ActiveCampaign, on Shelbourne Road.
Terenure’s mini-section, like so many clubs around the country, is vibrant, with close on 600 kids now playing there, where back in 2012 it was more like 200. This has brought more and more parents into the club. The Tigers, the club’s special needs team, has generated a huge feelgood factor.
A host of hard-working people have contributed to the success story which culminated in last Sunday’s superb 50-24 win over Clontarf to complete the club’s most successful season ever, be it Aoife O’Grady, the club’s honorary secretary, or former players such as Paul Haycock, last season’s president, or his successor, Tom D’Arcy, who picked a good one! And many, many more.
Blaney moved on in 2019 to become head-coach at Blackrock, who completed back-to-back promotions at Stradbrook last Saturday to them to climb back up to 1B.
Cue another key appointment.
Sean Skehan is the brother of Andy, who has helped transform St Michael’s into arguably the main supplier of ready-made talent on the Leinster production line. Skehan himself coached Glenstal Abbey to their first and heretofore only Munster Schools Senior Cup in 2018.
He applied for a few positions as club head coach after moving to Dublin in 2019, and simply blew away the club’s hierarchy in his first interview. He is adored by the players and regarded as a highly astute coach.
Like all clubs, the pandemic basically shut them down for a year and a half, and it still remains a minor miracle in resilience that all have survived. But in some respects, the lockdowns helped the club retain its increasing role as a hub in the community.
After his time playing in Japan where coffee shacks are ubiquitous, Harrison Brewer resolved to do the same in the club’s Lakelands Park grounds. Back in those days when socially distant coffees were the social highlight of the weekend, the club became a popular meeting place and, once the AIL returned, Terenure home games became the best attended on the club scene.
The links with the school have never been stronger. Skehan and three of the first-team squad, Colm de Buitlear, Conall Boomer and Luke Clohessy are all teachers there.
At last Sunday’s repeat of the new classico with Clontarf, the 8,642 crowd made for a better atmosphere than was the case for the Leinster-Sharks game, or any of Ireland’s three home Six Nations games last season.
Terenure and Clontarf represent their communities, and are not only the outstanding two teams of the last two seasons, but also the best supported.
It’s a good rivalry, born out of respect. The Clontarf coach Andy Wood and Matt D’Arcy, their captain, went to the Terenure dressing-room and congratulated them. ‘Tarf have been the standard-bearers of the last decade and have forced Terenure to raise their game on the pitch, while the reverse is perhaps true off the pitch.
There must have been 3-4,000 in Lakelands Park last Sunday for the team’s homecoming and the party will go on for a few days and nights yet.
Having reached the mountain top – Terenure also won the Leinster Senior League, Bateman Cup, Leinster Senior Cup this season – it will be interesting to see what happens next.
“We go again” was this season’s mantra, and Brewer wasn’t long in repeating it to his team-mates after Sunday’s win.
Critically, Skehan has turned down an offer to become the director of rugby at UCD to stay. Assistant coach Emmet McMahon, who will also be a loss to St Michael’s, will take up that UCD role, and Simon Malone is heading back to Limerick and will work with Young Munster who, like Clontarf and Cork Constitution after their impressive rebuild, will be among those who will come back stronger.
But Skehan’s brother Andy will become part of a coaching ticket along with Conor Gildea and Paul Barr while, of course, the long-serving director of rugby Ian Morgan will remain in situ.
Ask anyone around Lakelands Park last Sunday and there was a common theme. This is only the beginning.
