MY CLUB: DUBLIN UNIVERSITY FC
TCD,
Goldsmith Hall,
Pearse St,
Dublin 2
By DAIRE WALSH
THE 2016/17 season of the Ulster Bank League promises to be a big one for Dublin University FC, as they return to the top-flight of Irish domestic rugby after a 10-year absence.
Trinity will compete in a Division 1A league that contains seven Dublin sides, and while the college’s director of rugby Tony Smeeth acknowledges that survival is the aim for his young squad, he is excited by the prospect of playing some of the country’s best teams.
“The big thing is, of course we want to stay up. You want to win it, and then you want to stay up. Survival would obviously be the first thing you’re looking at,” remarked Smeeth.
“I just look at the league, and I smile at each team I see come up, because every team we’ve got rivalry with.
“All the Dublin teams we just know so well. It’s just exciting, it’s why you do it. You get nervous and anxious about the whole thing, but where else would you want to be really.”
Originally from England, Smeeth first joined in Trinity back in 1998, and as he explains, he has also been heavily involved with the US Eagles and Blackrock College in the past.
“1998, so what’s that… 18 years? The great thing is the players change, so it keeps it fresh. When I first came to Ireland, I went to Blackrock in 1995, and that’s back in the good old days, when you were getting 4,000/5,000 (at games) in Dublin.
“I remember in Thomond Park, we played in front of 12,000 against Shannon.
“That was the days of Alain Rolland, Alan McGowan and Shane Byrne, Paul Wallace and all of those guys. That was my first three years, and then when the Trinity job came, the Academy job here… was what I wanted to do.
“This is the job you want to be in, and I was obviously involved in America as well. I was involved with the Eagles and stuff like that for a couple of years.”
Smeeth enjoys a very close relationship with Trinity’s club Chairman John Boyd, who identifies commitment, camaraderie and competitiveness as three major components of what makes Trinity the club it is today.
Indeed, with the foundation of the club dating back to 1854, Trinity is regarded as the oldest football club with the best-documented continuous history, and as Boyd reveals, it also played a significant role in the origins of the IRFU.
“We feel a sense of responsibility to the history. If you go back to Charles Barrington, who effectively started the game in Ireland, the laws of the games were written in rooms in Trinity College,” he explained.
“The first meeting to set up the IRFU took place in the rooms in Trinity College. We feel a great responsibility that we need to keep Trinity as a prime club in Irish rugby, and to maintain the wonderful history that’s there.”