Clondalkin Rugby Club will kick off their new season in a new ground
Clondalkin rugby are making progress on and off the field
CLONDALKIN Rugby Club are gearing up for a new season with the team involved in cup competitions at the minute before the league campaign commencing at the end of September.
The club will be present in a new ground in Baldonnel which has doubled the amount of pitches available to the team allowing the club to cater for more players and have all of the matches played in the one location.
Club chairman John Murphy highlighted the importance of improving the facilities in the club so that underage players can continue to progress throughout the age groups and become facilitated within the Senior teams.
“It’s to allow us to focus on the youth to help build that progression towards seniors.
‘Focusing in on the younger kids and building up the community aspect which will eventually turn into the seniors.
‘Recently we had that cup match against Athy where we had nine starters in the first team that were in the academy in the previous three years.”
The importance of implementing academy graduates cannot be understated with a steady conveyor belt of talent ensuring that Clondalkin has a constant supply of young players coming through.
The current crop being blooded into the new set up include Matty Kelly, Jake Lusk, Josh Domican, Josh Apps, Cillian Walsh Phillips, Thomas Carter, Jack Daly, Sean Murphy and Jack Quinn.
Family ties run strong in the club with Padraig O Ciardha Snr making his debut for the club this season with his son Padraig O Ciardha jnr already in the senior team. The pair are known as ‘Whacker’ and ‘Tapper’ respectively.
The Senior Men’s team won their league last year and will now be playing in Division 1b for the upcoming season.
Murphy spoke on the feelings around the club heading into the new campaign, after recent positive performances against the Guards, Athy and Newbridge.
“We are a capable team to compete at that level. Our goals are always the same, to increase player numbers, maintain players that we have, create an inclusive atmosphere but we obviously want to go on and win the league that we’re in.”
It’s not only the men’s teams who have been benefitting from the academy set up with the women’s section of the club only growing bigger and bigger in recent years with now two senior teams being fielded with over 35 total players.
After being relegated from Division 1 last year the senior women’s team has been bolstered with the addition of several players which should propel the side back into Division 1.
Four players have been added from the youth system Lizzie Crumpton, Saoirse Reilly, Amelia Cree and Kayla Jebb.
Two returning after time away, Ava Lopez and Niamh Coughlan while two totally new players have joined from other clubs, Elisa Popovici and Ellen Casey.
The women’s team finds themselves back in domestic league action on the fifth of October with a game against UCD in Baldonnel while the men’s team will be commencing their league campaign a couple of weeks earlier with their opening fixture on the 21st of September christening the new ground against Ashbourne.
