Future looks bright despite disappointment of defeat

Out of the three sides that topped their pool after the round robin stages of this year’s Connacht Schools Senior Cup, St Muredach’s were the unlucky ones who didn’t get a home semi-final. Given the dominance that Sligo Grammar School and Marist College have wielded in this competition in recent years, they were arguably the school that needed that edge the most.

As the team head coach Richard West pointed out, the change in playing surface might have made all the difference in their 38-10 defeat to Sligo Grammar School last week.

“We always felt we had an outside chance,” he told the Western People afterwards.

“We might have preferred to play them on our home pitch, which would be the astroturf. We feel our backs were always a little bit more potent, our forwards are probably a little bit on the lighter side. There's a lot of fifth years and fourth years in there in the pack,” he lamented.

“Even so, we had a little bit of confidence coming into it but one or two knocks early hit us a little bit, one of our big sixth years (Iarla Quinn) had a knee injury problem beforehand. But that’s cup rugby, you have to play what's in front of you and play what you have.” 

The landscape on the Connacht Schools scene may have been dominated by two schools but behind those established powers, Garbally College (now Clonfert College) are struggling at most levels, and the stage is open for any one of a number of schools to emerge as real contenders for this historic trophy.

For several reasons, West feels that St Muredach’s are ideally poised to make the next step very soon.

“We've been developing the Muredach’s brand rugby for the last few years, playing senior rugby is a big step up for us,” he said.

“That’s our second semi-final I think in the last three years, unfortunately, we've come up against Grammar each time!

“That progress is down to the boys themselves. We have sixth years there that have been playing with us for the last two years and this is their last moment. But for the school as a whole, we've been blessed in the school this year. I've been involved for the last four or five years but a teacher is now involved. Gary (Kavanagh) has come into the school, he plays with our seniors in the club. He's been an ex-captain of Ballina Rugby Club and he has just done a super, super job with them. Jack Murphy is helping out there as well, so Muredach’s Rugby is in a positive place, we were just talking about that there on the sideline. There's only about four sixth years on that team so hopefully next year we'll power on and represent and get to a final if we can.

“We feel that we can go again next year,” he continued.

“We have some good third years coming up as well and we just have to keep developing those guys. I might get a few of the sixth years to repeat the Leaving Cert and solve the rest of the problems!” 

Sligo Grammar School head coach Will Macauley also paid tribute to St Muredach’s, both for their character and for their ability.

“Muredach’s are a class outfit. They've been working very hard all year and in the past few years to build up this team, we’ve played them three times this year now so we know their threats.

“Commiserations, thoughts and prayers go out to the whole school and community for what's happened, and they came here today ready to perform. They fronted up in the tackle, 12 (Conor Connolly) has been a credit to their school for all three years of senior rugby and he pinned us back with some great kicks, our guys really had to adjust their strategy and think their way through that game.

“But I've got absolute faith in all my boys. Every single one of them got on today and they all did a job for their shirt.”