Nick Greene: 'There’s no reason to put a limit on it'

Nick Greene described Garryowen’s successful 1B campaign as a season of two halves, and one in which fortunes turned with the securing of the club’s 40th Munster Senior Cup.

AIL RETURNS: Nick Greene described Garryowen’s successful 1B campaign as a season of two halves, and one in which fortunes turned with the securing of the club’s 40th Munster Senior Cup.Picture: ©INPHO/Tom Maher

Garryowen return to Energia AIL Men’s Division 1A action at Dooradoyle on Saturday, their return to the top flight achieved at the first opportunity and with the Limerick club looking beyond merely staying there in 2024-25.

The first challenge to those ambitions comes in the form of perennial title contenders Lansdowne but after winning the Munster Senior Cup last season at the expense of the 2023-24 AIL champions Cork Constitution, and finishing their 1B campaign by storming into and then progressing through the promotion play-offs, Garryowen are not placing a ceiling on what they are capable of this season.

“We showed how good we can be, coming up from 1B last season,” Garryowen and Ireland Sevens player Nick Greene said at last week’s Energia AIL media launch. “I know it’s a new level of competition when you come into 1A but we’ve kept building through the summer and through pre-season so hopefully we’ll be able to push on and see where we can go.

“There’s no reason to put a limit on it.” 

Greene described Garryowen’s successful 1B campaign as a season of two halves, and one in which fortunes turned with the securing of the club’s 40th Munster Senior Cup.

“It was a lot of work (to return to 1A) but when we went down we said that we’d done it before, gone down and come back up in one season, so we’d work towards that. That was the name of the game and we kept building over the season and getting that Munster Senior Cup win spurred us on, I think, got us through it.

“We went from a mediocre start to a flying finish in 1B and we really came out and showed what Garryowen was about towards the end. We’ve a couple of new players in but a similar coaching staff and we’re looking to push on again and see what we can do in 1A.

“It’s the top of domestic rugby in Ireland so it’s always going to be tough but I think we showed last season with where we got ourselves to, we can show again how good we are.” 

Former Bandon Grammar back-rower/centre Greene is balancing two ambitions given his elevation to a full-time Sevens contract with Ireland and the desire to become an Olympian at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, yet his hunger to be a part of Garryowen’s plan in the current AIL campaign is just as ravenous.

“From what I’ve heard, pre-season has been good but I’ve been up here playing with the Sevens now. I’ve signed with the Sevens for the season, so I haven’t gone down because I’ve been training at the (IRFU) High Performance Centre in Dublin.

“I’d been in and out of the Sevens for the last two years but I’m in now for the coming season so this will be my first full season inside a professional environment.

“I guess how much I get to play AIL depends on how well I’m performing up with the Sevens. My main goal would be to push on with the Sevens and aim to be in a good spot come four years’ time but I’m hoping to get some opportunities to go back playing with Garryowen and if that happens then I will, 100%.”