MY CLUB – Clontarf RFC
Castle Avenue,
Clontarf, Dublin 3
Ph: 01 8336214
www.clontarfrugby.com
By DAIRE WALSH
The month of April has been a quite extraordinary period in the history of Clontarf Rugby Club, who finally secured their first ever Ulster Bank League title on Saturday, April 19, and then welcomed the Barbarians to Castle Avenue four days later on the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf.
Club chairman Brian Goff was understandably thrilled that they finally got their hands on the Ulster Bank League trophy, and saluted the resilience of the squad following their near misses in recent seasons.
“We’ve had quite a few near misses, which have been well documented. We lost a final that we drew against Shannon on the first-try rule. Two years ago St Mary’s pipped us by a point, so it was really sweet to finally get that title,” Goff stated.
“I won’t say it’s a monkey off our backs. It didn’t really hold us back. We continued to develop and get stronger. It’s still nice to win your first title. I hope we’ll win many more, but if it’s only one it’s a sweet way to do it.”
Their glamour fixture with the Baa-Baas was a fitting way for Andy Wood’s squad to bring the curtain down on a momentous season, but Goff revealed that the squad never allowed their focus to shift away from their pursuit for domestic silverware.
“The players have been great. They’ve just been focusing on the next game. I think it only really sunk in for the players after they had won the league that they had a very important game coming up. They just went about their business week in, week out, and we went about organising the day.”
Having previously coached the club’s Under 20 side, Goff has been in his current position for three years, and first gained an interest in the Dublin 3 outfit through the involvement of his own sons.
“This is my third (year) as chairman. I never played for Clontarf. I got involved through my sons playing rugby, youth and mini rugby from Under 8s. I started going down to watch them play, and I really enjoyed that.
“I got involved at management at Under 20s level, and then I was asked to take on the role of chairman three years ago, and was honoured to be asked and delighted to accept.”
Although the club fields teams from Under 7s up to adult level, the importance of the senior team winning a league title cannot be underestimated, and Goff is hopeful that it will lead to an increase in participation levels.
“It’s going to do us absolutely no harm. We used 37 players this season in the League, and of those 37, I think we worked out that 15 of them had come through youth/mini and U20s rugby within the club.
“That in itself is a very encouraging stat for guys to know that if they play with Clontarf, there is a way up and into the higher levels of the game,” he added.