All Black Spencer brings fresh impetus to Terenure's redemption road

Terenure’s Luke Clohessy at the Energia All-Ireland Leagues launch. Pic: Ryan Byrne, Inpho

With a headline-grabbing new head coach and a burning desire to return the Energia AIL men’s title to Lakelands, Terenure can be expected to be front and centre of the push for play-off positions in Division 1A this season.

Last season’s failure to secure a top-four finish stung the 2023 champions after four successive years of AIL knockout rugby, but the arrival of former All Blacks playmaker Carlos Spencer on a three-year contract as successor to title-winning head coach Sean Skehan has brought some fresh impetus. 

Pre-season ended on a high at Energia Park on September 15 as Luke Clohessy lifted the Bank of Ireland Leinster Senior Cup at the expense of Lansdowne. Now it’s down to the business of a new AIL season, which kicks off on home soil in Dublin 6 on Saturday against UCD.

“Yeah, a great way to start off or I suppose to finish pre-season with a cup,” Clohessy told the Irish Examiner. “It was a nice reward for a tough pre-season. So we celebrated well on the Saturday night but it's back to the drawing board now and all roads point to AIL 1 against UCD.

“We were bitterly disappointed not making the top four (last season). We’ve set our stall out, we want to be in contention for knockouts and the final every season. So it was the first year in a while since COVID that we didn't make the semi-final and final, we were pretty disappointed.” 

Clohessy revealed the pain of last season has been put to positive effect ahead of the 2025-26 campaign.

“So we used that in the off-season and went back to the drawing board and actually had a few bodies leaving, a few players, a few coaches and then we'd look to replace them.

“We have a fantastic coaching ticket in now as well as some new bodies and fresh faces so it's been a fantastic start to the season.” 

Speaking of that new coaching ticket, Clohessy said the appointment of former Blues, Northampton and New Zealand fly-half Spencer took the players by complete surprise.

“I found out at the same time as everyone else, it was that big a shock because it had to be kept down on lock obviously. It was a complete surprise and he's been a fantastic addition.

“He’s really, really calm. Pretty chill. The Kiwi accent is new around Lakelands and it's going well, he's good. He's come in and obviously he was late coming over just with visas and stuff so he fully trusted the coaches that were there to do a job and thanked them for the work they did because obviously it paid off with our win in the Leinster League.

“So now all the gang is together, we're all super excited. It's definitely been a good fit. If you look back at our style of play over the last couple of seasons, we like to play that expansive game which I know he's pretty famous for.

“So it's definitely a great fit in that sense and it's exciting to see what we can do with it.” 

Needless to say, the appointment of a coach who dazzled as a player has raised expectations at Terenure exponentially and that suits the back-rower.

“Look, we'd be lying if didn’t say we wanted to be back in that final,” Clohessy added. “We want that cup back in Lakelands so that's certainly our goal and we're definitely happy to do whatever it takes to get there again.”