Captains claim AIL at its best

THOSE who believe Irish club rugby is on the wane will be quickly contradicted by two of the leading captains in the country.

Evan Ryan and Hugh Hogan, who lead their respective teams, Cork Constitution and St Mary’s College, into battle in Saturday’s AIB League final at Dubarry Park, Athlone (3.35pm) insist the intensity and standard of play in this season’s league has been higher than ever.

After an absorbing campaign of 14 games when leadership of Division 1A changed hands on numerous occasions, Constitution topped the table ahead of St Mary’s.

Ryan is convinced this season has produced a better quality of rugby than in any of the previous campaigns in which he was involved: “It is certainly the most difficult I have played in; I believe the standard has gone up and teams are aiming higher. Intensity and the competitive edge was more evident while consistency was down; most of the teams have been able to beat the others and that has made it a very interesting campaign.

“It didn’t turn out to be a slogfest and neither were any of the games that one-sided; what you got was good competitive games being played week in and week out and there were no cricket scores,” he said.

Playing home and away fixtures appealed to Ryan, who added: “It’s always disappointing when you lose a competitive match; there are times when you leave the ground wishing that you could have got a second chance. With this format you get that opportunity.”

Hogan was quick to agree with that assessment, pointing out that St Mary’s beat Constitution at Templeville Road but lost the fixture in Temple Hill: “It summed up the way the league went this season,” he said, “It’s all to play for this weekend though.”

“There is no doubt but that it was a pretty tough campaign to get to this point. We set our sights on the top four and we found it very hard; we could never say with any degree of certainty that we would make it.

“Playing home and away is a good system because you get to know the players a bit more, and on a personal note it’s nice that the long-standing social aspect of rugby seems to be creeping back.

“On the playing side, you’ve got to be right on the ball every weekend. The intensity was such that six of the eight teams were fighting for top-four places right up to the end. Going into the final weekend, Cork Con were the only team guaranteed a play-off with others fighting for a home semi or to simply reach the last four.

“For us, it’s 10 years since St Mary’s last appeared in a final and it was the last time we won it.

“Peter Smyth (coach) played on that team and he has been saying that he was only 22 at the time so figured he would be back there again.

“Time has proved him wrong and it has shown how difficult it is to get to this point; we’re happy to be there but we haven’t won anything yet so a huge performance is imperative on Saturday,” he said.