Clontarf put AIL Division 1A title on the line against Dublin rivals St Mary’s College

FINAL COUNTDOWN: Conor Dean of St Mary's RFC, left, and Dylan Donnellan of Clontarf FC during an Energia AIL Final media event. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.

Defending champions Clontarf put their Energia AIL Division 1A title on the line against Dublin rivals St Mary’s College at Aviva Stadium on Sunday (4pm) with the northsiders looking to avenge home and away defeats during the regular season.

For club captain and hooker Dylan Donnellan the opportunity is one not to be relished, despite Clontarf’s almost ever-present appearances in the AIL showpiece over the last decade and more.

Since 2013/14, the Castle Avenue side have reached eight of the last 10 finals either side of a two-year hiatus for COVID from 2020-21, with last season’s 22-21 victory over Cork Constitution their fourth title in that period.

“Maybe not enough for my own liking is the only problem,” was Donnellan’s reaction to the suggestion his club are perennial visitors to the deciding fixture.

“So, everyone you get, you just have to kind of, you have to cherish and just try to get the job done. So, please God, that'll be the case now on Sunday.

“It's obviously, it's what we work for every year, all year, so to see it kind of payoff is absolutely brilliant. So, one more job to do now.”

In St Mary’s they face a club which last wore the AIL crown in 2012, suffered relegation in 2017 and only returned to the topflight last season. They finished runners-up in the league table in their first campaign back and topped it this time around, seeing off D6 rivals Terenure College 20-13 in front of 5,000 supporters at Templeville Road last Saturday.

Clontarf overcame Lansdowne 39-28 at Castle Avenue the same day but it is their league record against Mary’s which fuels their motivation this weekend, particularly given their 14-10 home loss came in the final round of league action on April 4, backing up a 32-21 defeat away on the opening day back in September.

“Mary's got the better of us this year so nice to be able to try to rectify that in the last one of the season,” Donnellan said.

“Weather's looking good, which would be nice, it gives both teams a good opportunity to go at each other. So, I think it'll be a pretty good game, fairly exciting.

“But having watched that semi-final against Terenure as well, physically, I think they're definitely able to bring it. So, yeah, looking forward to having a right pop off them.”

Donnellan’s counterpart at St Mary’s is former Connacht fly-half Conor Dean, who revealed very different motivations for his club.

Last season’s 16-8 semi-final defeat at home to then-defending champions Cork Con was a bitter pill and Dean said: “It's massively fuelled us, I think, especially the start of the kick-off of the pre-season.

“It just left a bad taste in our mouths, obviously just coming short. Maybe we were a bit naive coming into the semi-final because we had such a good run, we had great momentum.

“We had a home semi, but yeah, there's been huge kind of motivation pushed from that. So close, but obviously so far away as well. So again, it was a big driver initially.

“And then again, just setting our goals at the start of the year and having some key motivators throughout the season has been pretty big as well.”