John O’Mahony reflects on ‘labour of love’ as All-Ireland League celebrates 30 years

O’Mahony, a recent past president of Cork Constitution, is father of Munster skipper and Ireland flanker Peter O’Mahony

John O'Mahony. Picture: Denis Scannell

As a former club president and father of an international player, John O’Mahony neatly encapsulates the close links between club rugby in Ireland and the national team it has supplied with Test-quality talent across the 30-year history of the All Ireland League.

It is a history that will be highlighted on TG4 tomorrow evening as AIL title sponsor Energia celebrates that milestone with the production of a documentary featuring former players such as Niamh Briggs, Gordon D’Arcy, Keith Earls, and Fiona Reidy and also O’Mahony, a recent past president of Cork Constitution and father of Munster skipper and Ireland flanker Peter O’Mahony.

Narrated in Irish by Máire Treasa Ní Dhubhghaill, Energia AIL: A 30 Year Rugby Legacy, will air on TG4 tomorrow at 5.15pm and will be available episodically to watch on YouTube from Monday with each of the four episodes released on a weekly basis.

It is a docuseries that serves to underline not only the contribution of the club game to Irish rugby but also its deep-lying roots in the community that not just the 60 Energia AIL teams have but all 217 clubs on the island of Ireland.

O’Mahony expressed both of those sentiments when talking to the Irish Examiner yesterday.

“The All Ireland League has been an incredible success. Just recently we had a referee who retired from international rugby who was only saying how high the quality of the AIL games is and even how it stands in comparison to the United Rugby Championship.

“Energia are very taken and rightly so, with the idea of placing the clubs in the community and how those clubs have served the community in which those clubs are based. For me in my time it was a labour of love in many ways and I think also for the volunteers who have such a knowledge of rugby and are intent on doing a good job on things.”

O’Mahony, 60, first joined Con as a six-year-old in the 1960s and by the time the idea of an All Ireland League was floated in the early 1990s, he and many in the club welcomed the concept with open arms.

“Great memories,” he said. “I can only speak for Cork Con but I know we were very much pro an All Ireland League. It was a time I’d say all the clubs in every province were sick of playing each other. Ultimately the nature of sportspeople is competitive and it was a natural progression to want to see how you would get on against the top clubs in the other provinces. I think it was a no-brainer for the IRFU.”

It was with some irony then, that the first AIL final was an all-Munster affair with Con edging Garryowen 9-3 in front of 10,000 spectators at Dooradoyle.

“It was an incredible competition, happy days,” O’Mahony added. “In the very first season, you had Donal Lenihan, Paul McCarthy, Ralph Keyes, Mickey Bradley, Kenny Murphy playing on the Con team and that tells you the importance of the club game in that sphere. And if you come to latter-day, the likes of Stephen Archer, Simon Zebo, all these guys are on the wall now so they are obviously still progressing through the clubs. So by definition, the importance of the club is self-evident from that.

“It’s those volunteers that go out every Saturday and equally the position of the club in the community, it’s a centre that has a positive draw for youngsters who go there and play a sport that we love and are trying to expand and it’s always been an important centre for that.”