Club rugby makes long-awaited return on a September Saturday in Cork

Tadhg Coakley on the rightness and relief of live rugby's return to Musgrave Park

BACK IN ACTION: Midleton’s Daniel Murray tries to get away from Sundays Well’s Eric Kingston during the Munster Senior Cup match at Musgrave Park on Saturday. For a lot of young players the local derby was their first experience of senior rugby. Pictures: Inpho/Laszlo Geczo

It’s 4pm on a late summer afternoon in a sports ground on the south side of Cork city. An intake of breath and … referee Robert O’Sullivan’s whistle cuts the balmy air. Eoin Lacey of Sundays Well Rugby Football Club clips the ball high into a September sky. And Midleton and Sundays Well return to rugby.

The uncertainty of the five-month odyssey to this moment was brought home to me last week by Tom Mulcahy, the Midleton head coach. From March to late July, rugby was a non-entity, he ruefully explained, just a matter of keeping in touch with players as much as possible without any certainty that there would even be a season ahead.