Coach Cahill hailed as Bruff celebrate historic victory
Celebrations continued at Davey Clarke’s Bar yesterday after the Limerick outfit — in just their third season in the AIB league — defeated Wanderers, one of the oldest clubs in Irish rugby at Templeville Road on Saturday.
Wanderers, who were promoted to Division two, were unbeaten since Rainey Old Boys defeated them in October and were hotly fancied to overcome Deady’s side. But tries from Cathal O’Regan and Deady gave the Limerick club an 18-12 victory and their first national senior title.
There was double celebration for the Bruff club when John Hayes won the Irish Examiner-sponsored Munster Rugby Senior Player of the year award at ceremony Sliversprings Hotel in Cork on Saturday.
At 22, Deady is one of the youngest captains in the All-Ireland League, and, though delighted to accept the trophy on behalf of the team, he attributed Bruff’s incredible season to the acumen of Eoin Cahill, who is just 25.
Cahill returned to his native club having spent five successful years with Shannon, where the first centre won three AIL Division One medals.
As in most country areas, family forms the bedrock of a club and Eoin’s two brothers, Brian and Tony, are the half backs on a team brimful of local lads. The ‘Brothers Cahill’ were the catalyst behind so much of Bruff’s good rugby this season, says Deady.
Such are the club’s lofty aspirations that when they missed out on automatic promotion by four points, all energies were channelled into the play-offs.
“At the start of the season, the lads really put down a marker that we push for promotion this year,” adds Deady. “We lost four times in the league and lost on promotion and we said to ourselves that we’ll push on and try to get a trophy.
“There was more hunger in the club this year than I’ve ever seen.”
Three busloads made the trip from Bruff to Dublin to roar on their troops against the Dublin 4 club. O’Regan’s 29th-minute try helped the Limerick men lead 13-9 at half-time. Wanderers relied heavily on the boot of out-half and Limerick native Billy Tracey, who landed four penalties. But Deady’s intercept try, five minutes from time, sealed a famous day in the short history of Bruff RFC.
“Bruff has always been a junior club, we’re only in existence since 1970.
Fellows that coached me when I was seven and eight years of age were on the side line yesterday and, when we were down and out, all we had to do was look over and see them on the sideline. They gave us that extra two or three percent to finish off the game.”
B. Deady (Capt), F. Hogan, J. Carroll, E. Cahill, J. Malone, B. Cahill, T. Cahill, D. Horan, C. O’Regan, G. Ryan, D. Murnane, S. Danagher, J. Taylor, J. Shine, M. Carroll. Subs: A. Bourke for D. Murnane (53 mins), S. Foster for D. Horan (61 mins).
D. Hunt, D. Fitzgerald, R. Likely, H. Davies, J. Gibson, B. Treacy, B. O’Brien, P. Greene, B. Cantrell (Capt), G. Fitzgerald, V. Ball, P. Ryan, K. Kiripati, E. Wardell, P. Simone. Subs: P. Noble for D. Hunt (45 mins), J. Ferris for R. Likely (60 mins), D. Rowe for P. Greene (47 mins), S. O’Farrelly for E. Wardell (50 mins).
P. Stanley (IRFU).
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