Working class heroes

THE Moyross area of Limerick has the sort of reputation places like Beruit would like to shed.

Like any such handle, it has largely been instilled by people who don't live there. Indeed, for a stranger to the area, it is easy to see why it might be described as a place best avoided after dark.

Essentially a collection of old and new council estates, the area is a curious mixture of houses burnt out and boarded up and those which are brightly decorated and bedecked with satellite dishes. Piebald ponies, rangy dogs and burnt out cars are part of the landscape and, to some eyes, they tell a very specific story.

They do not, however, tell the story of the pride of this parish and its collective sporting passions for soccer and rugby in particular.

The greater Moyross area is home to both Thomond RFC and to Ballynanty Rovers, respectively one of the best rugby nurseries in the country and now a senior club in its own right, and one of the most successful junior soccer clubs over the years. It is these clubs which have given Moyross something to be proud of when there was, perhaps, little else to put up in lights.

Thomond RFC is central to Moyross in many ways, and it is based deep in the heart of this modern big city working class suburb. Liam Fitzgerald Park is the club's home, similar to many rugby grounds around the country a strip of neat verdant green, surrounded by suburbia. It does not, however, ooze the jolly bonhomie of many of these places. It is given away by the razor wire, the stout fences, the heavily chained gates and its heavily barricaded windows.

For all that, however, it is home to a passion which burns inside player/coach Ger Earls, one of the most fearsome open side flankers ever to have come out of Munster and a man who many regard as having been scandalously overlooked in terms of representative honours at the height of his career.

Despite a ten year hiatus with Young Munster on the other side of the city, Earls is a Thomond man through and through and lives 500 metres from the ground. Even at 35 years of age, his love of playing is undiminished. In fact, because he is now "giving a bit back to Thomond," that passion has heightened.

"I started off with Thomond when I was an U-13 and I would never have left in the first place, only they were a Junior club back then and they could never really seem to get up to be a senior team," Earls recalls. "Like most players I wanted to play senior, so I had to leave. A lot of us had to move on myself, the O'Halloran brothers and Eddie Halvey all came out of Thomond, but had to move on. If Thomond had been a senior club we'd never have moved."

Earls was obviously a talent because Young Munster moved to sign him along with the O'Halloran brothers and it was Tony Grant, the former Munsters coach, who was responsible for bringing them in. "He brought a good few lads from Thomond to the club. I'm still great friends with Tony. Indeed I work for him now as a floor layer."

Ger reckons he could have gone to any number of clubs, but there was one very definite thing about Munsters they were a working class club. "It was a real 'no bullshit' operation and the guys coming in training could be coming in covered in cement or sawdust or anything they were all just ordinary blokes. Other teams we came across over the years playing them had a lot of airs and graces about them, But there was none of that at Clifford Park. It was all very down to earth and looking back on it there were a lot of clubs we came across and said to ourselves: 'I'm glad we didn't join them' and that was just in Limerick!"

When he joined Munsters in '89, Grant was trying to rebuild the team and Earls reckons he was a great man to spot young talent. "He brought four or five from Thomond and they were all key to the Munsters team that won the AIL in 1993. There has a lot of hard work went into that team, but it paid off," he says.

Within about six months of joining Munsters, Earls had a Munster Senior Cup medal in his possession (although he lost nine finals subsequently with the club over the years) and the only way was up. It was all stout and crubeens. Very definitely so when they won the league in '93.

Earls was involved with Munster then and had played a vital role in the famous Musgrave Park victory over Australia in '92 and he can trace elements of the present day Munster success back to those times.

"Looking back on it you can see how whole the whole 'Club Munster' thing developed out of those days. You can see the influences that were borne through from the Munster team of the early '90's typified by Peter Claw and Michael Gallimh. There was never any of the bullshit stuff from those guys and you can see that influence in the team right now."

However, Earls has justifiable grounds for argument that he did not get the recognition he deserved back then and he reckons the association with his club was a problem in some quarters. "That was something which affected myself and a lot of other guys who played with Young Munster over the years. I think there was a thing with myself and Aidan O'Halloran where we found that our face didn't fit at least I thought that myself. But Tony Grant pulled us aside and said 'if you let that get to you, you're a beaten dog.'

"When I look back at it now, ten twelve years later, I think that if you played with Young Munsters you had to be an extra special type of player like Peter Clohessy to get recognised. Some people said that if I'd been playing for anyone else, I'd have had more recognition, but I don't necessarily believe that. At times I thought it was the case and stuff like that probably affected my club form until Tony Grant told me to put it all behind me and get on with it.

"I'd have loved to have played for Ireland and I did have a trial in '92. Paco Fitzgerald played on that trial too and he came through. I thought I played well enough, but I heard no more and that was that I felt my face didn't fit. I was from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe it would be different now because there are a lot of good things being done for young players with U-21 teams and 'A' teams and so on, so different doors might have opened. But it was tougher back then and a lot of good players never got to play for Ireland.

"I was known to be a bit small for the position I was in too, and that might have made it difficult for me. And with the likes of David Corkery, Eddie Halvey around, it was going to be hard for me to break through and I also had a few problems with my shoulders, so that didn't help."

But one thing about Earls was that he was wholehearted player who says he felt he had to "give 100% or not bother at all."

He reckons he got "about ten Munster caps" in all, and always gave it 100%. "But when nothing happens you ask yourself what's wrong. It was all different then."

He does not look back in anger at perceived slights. Rather he looks to the future and particularly the future of Thomond. "I have a young fella called Keith," he says, "and he plays with the U-15s at Thomond and he's asked me should he move somewhere else to further his career, but I've said to him that as Thomond are now a senior club, he could not be in a better place."

EARLS came back to Thomond when they got senior status. "The guys on the committee were looking for someone who knew the ground locally and knew the club and they wanted someone to coach and to bring on the team, but I wasn't ready to give up playing, so I agreed to come back as a player/coach. I felt it was only right that I go back to Thomond because they'd given me a start."

The club is not, he confesses, the richest club in the world "by a long shot," but with 90% of the team and 100% of the committee, born and bred to Thomond, that is what really stands to them.

"We've brought in the odd foreigner to spice things up a bit," he says, "but the majority of our players are home bred and that gives us a sense of community that very few other clubs can boast. Money doesn't come into it for our players it's all about training on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and getting on the team for the weekend."

The AIL, however, is not the draw it once was, Earls admits, but it has a very important place nonetheless. "Back in '93 when we won the AIL, the whole town turned out. Jesus, it was massive. But when Shannon won it last year, there was no shine on it because the Munster thing was overshadowing everything. But I do think that the AIL is very important because it is an outlet for young talent.

"Mossie Lawlor is an example of that coming from last year's successful Shannon side into the Munster team. The AIL is the sole feeder for the inter-provincial sides and it has to be supported and nourished, which I think the IRFU had done a fine job doing.

"We've a couple of lads in our team now who I feel could come through in the next couple of years. theres a prop called Eddie Phayer, then there's a guys like Michael Long and John Sheehan who are excellent players and we've a scrum half called Kevin O'Mahoney who played with the Munster U-21s this year. They all have the potential and we are working to get them into the right situation to make the most of their talent."

Thomond, he says, is Thomond and the guys just want to be on the team.

"Last year when we played the likes of Old Belvedere, or any of the northern clubs, who don't want for money, our lads go up there and see the facilities they have and the difference between us and them is huge but our guys get the same training and the same level of preparation.

"There's no class consciousness as far as our fellas are concerned. They're working class guys who give a huge commitment to Thomond and that's the way it should be. Anyone who tries to get on top of us because of who we are well, we won't be long putting them in their place."

Moyross will be proud.