Waterpark profit from forward thinking
Isolated as a senior club in the south east of the country, it was determined that bold decisions would have to be taken to ensure its survival.
Sale and investment was deemed to be the way forward.
The club engaged a builder to develop a certain amount of their land and used the money wisely to develop all-weather soccer, hockey and cricket pitches in the area surrounding the rugby facilities. A year-round income was crucial.
It turned out to be a wise investment, but nothing compared with the signing of Australian coach John Kelsey, who this week led the club into division two of the AIB League for the first time in their history.
Club mentors will point to that brave decision to take on a professional as the main reason for their elevation.
Equally, they will laud the players who accepted a decision at the start of the season that they should not be paid.
It was one thing or another. Kelsey got the money but put in a huge amount of time to redeem the paymasters.
He is not just the coach of the senior squad. Instead, he has immersed himself in all the activities of the club, right down to under-12 level, coaching the coaches and working with them to provide the club with a solid base.
His one-year contract has been stretched to two and, in the meantime, he will bring four of the brightest young players in the club with him when he departs to spend four months coaching in Canada this summer.
Kelsey has also had the seal of approval from Waterpark to go and talk to the people heading up the Waterford Institute of Technology, a now burgeoning college with over 7,000 students.
Clearly, there is scope to work out a system of co-operation to boost playing numbers in the club and Kelsey sees it as a marriage made in Heaven.
While there is huge enthusiasm and optimism in Waterford right now, Kelsey warns that more quality players will have to be added to the panel for next year's division two campaign.
“We can't survive with what we have got,” Kelsey said. “We have had a great season and full credit is due to the players for that. But we need a stronger panel; we need to have quality back-up in certain positions.
“This season we have been lucky to avoid serious injury problems. Sure, we have had one or two key guys out from time to time but we can't take that risk in a higher division.”
He is sure to have the full backing of the Waterpark club. Paul Nolan, this year's President, was one of the main men in pulling the club up by the heels but he would be the first to admit that the groundwork was laid by several of the older members over a long number of seasons.
“We cannot emphasise enough the hard work so many people put in over the years,” Nolan said. “We are here as a senior club in an area of splendid isolation in a sense. It has been a tough struggle but we need to move on.
“A conscious decision was made to make the most of the resources in the south east. We have a good base now. Our under-age teams, almost all of them, have won trophies of one type or another this season and the promotion of the senior team was the icing on the cake.
“Our aim is to develop an academy to get quality players into WIT and into our club. We would settle for four or five for the moment. The thing is that WIT are in the process of developing a sports psychology course and that, in addition to all the other courses in the college, would be of major benefit to us.
“Our aim for next year is to ensure that we don't lose any of the squad we have had this season and to build it up.
“Over 400,000 people live in our catchment area and there is no reason why those numbers should not be able to sustain a vibrant senior rugby club.
“Sure,” Nolan added, “we have reached out targets earlier than expected but I do believe that we can survive in the second division. There is no reason either that we cannot eventually go on from there and move up another rung in the ladder.
“There will always be huge competition in Waterford between rugby, soccer and Gaelic games. We don't have a problem with that, but I believe we can do ourselves justice and do Waterford proud by having a rugby team that is capable of taking on the best in Ireland.”
Former President Brian Morrissey was equally positive about the future of a club founded in 1925.
“We have won a fair amount of trophies but everything was relative at the time,” Morrissey said. “This promotion to division two is probably the greatest day in our history. We want to get better and we want to prove to everyone what we can achieve.”
Waterpark RFC now have the perfect platform to do that.
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