'We ran out of time but history doesn’t lie': Cork Con know how hard it is to win back-to-back AIL titles

Cork Con lost 22-21 to Clontarf in Sunday's AIL Division 1A final. 

Shannon, two decades ago, were the last team ton win consecutive AIL titles. Pic: ©INPHO/Bryan Keane

Cork Constitution’s dream of landing back-to-back Energia All Ireland League titles may have come up agonisingly short but the Temple Hill club are committed to the idea the feat has not become impossible to achieve.

Clontarf’s 22-21 Division 1A final victory at Aviva Stadium last Sunday ended Cork Con’s hopes of becoming the first team since Shannon in the mid-2000s to successfully retain the crown they had won 12 months earlier. It was also the third successive defeat of a defending champion in a league decider as the Dublin side regained the title they last enjoyed in 2022. The Castle Avenue club had lost the 2023 title to Terenure, who in turn had their reign ended by Constitution.

Those three consecutive years of final heartache underline the size of the task of defending the AIL title and Cork Con defence coach Brian Scott said: “Last year we felt the ecstasy of winning and you feel agony today.

“It’s quite evident it’s a hard thing to do, back-to-back, but I don’t think it was from lack of trying, to be fair. It was a tight game and our lads gave it everything and we fought to the bitter end. In a way you feel like we ran out of time but history doesn’t lie, I suppose, and it’s showing us that it is hard to go back-to-back.

“But there is going to be someone else, there has to be and hopefully it’s not next year and we get another chance at it, but someone else will definitely back it up at some stage.” 

Clontarf head coach Andy Wood empathised with the Cork Con contingent and said: “We’ve been there on the other side too often to mention, but a huge amount of respect for Con, what they bring.

“They do bring it to a stage where it’s going to be a one-score game, all the way through the season and it proved again.

“They scored last and it took a huge defensive set and then a great turnover from our supersub Oran Walsh, who came on and did a fantastic job. So a sort of microcosm of how our season’s gone on.” 

Clontarf skipper and try-scoring hooker Dylan Donnellan also acknowledged how tough it had been to get over the line in a gripping encounter at the Aviva.

“It was one of those games that you really just need to manage your way through because as we saw, one point is what gets you out on the other side,” Donnellan said.

“There was never really any breathing space, even when we went eight points ahead, we were eight points ahead for two or three minutes and then it claws you back in again.

“So it is a tough game to manage and that speaks to the quality of Con, the quality of the AIL as a league and the quality of our team and what we could put out on the day.” 

Scott was optimistic there was plenty of rugby left in the Johnny Holland-coached Con squad, despite Sunday’s agony.

“We definitely have some guys who won’t be with us next year but the bulk of that team is there and hopefully we’ll see more and more of them.

“They just continue to impress me from a coaching perspective. I really feel like this group probably struggled at times throughout the year and they just kept stepping up and being mature. The ownership that led to the growth to actually get us back here, like we lost to Lansdowne and Clontarf and people were writing us off going into the play-offs but there we are and we got a chance to defend it today. We just didn’t get over the line unfortunately.”