Tallaght Rugby Club took part in the Philip Preston Cup against Guinness’s Rugby Club

Rugby match is held in memory of Philip Preston

Michael Howley September 11, 2025 1:42 pm

TALLAGHT Rugby Club took part in the Philip Preston Cup over the match against Guinness’s Rugby Club being held in honour of former Tallaght Person of the Year and longtime club member Philip Preston who passed away suddenly in 2016.

Philip played an invaluable role in promoting the youth sector in Tallaght and developing the club into what it is today.

The game itself did not turn out the way that Tallaght would have hoped result wise being on the wrong end of a 49-34 scoreline.

Now in his third season as coach, Adam Nolan was relatively happy with his side’s performance in spite of the result not going their way.

“Definitely there’s been a big improvement week on week from where we were at the start of preseason.

‘I think a lot of players stood up, we were a bit unfortunate and we were missing players due to injury, not ideal preparation.

‘I think the lads can be proud of the performance and you don’t always get the bounce of the ball.”

Guinness would take the lead early on in the game and Tallaght would unfortunately not be able to overcome the deficit that had occurred over the first twenty minutes with the teams going fairly tit for tat scorewise after the fact.

The game serves as a valuable part of the club’s preseason with the men’s senior team kicking off their league campaign this coming weekend with a match against BGF Ravens.

The club has made several exciting additions to the squad with youth products returning to the club after playing rugby elsewhere for a couple of seasons, these include Jonah Hurley, Darragh & Ruairi O Donoghue, Craig O’Brien, Evan Tyrell and Eoin Van Der Krogt.

“I think it’s essential for any club to have that conveyor belt of youth. You see with most players as the years go on they get older and commitments crop up regarding their family life.

‘If you don’t have a youth system coming through it’s really hard to compete. I was a youth player myself and similar to the lads who would have come back into the club this year, I would have left for a couple of years and played down in St Mary’s.”

“I think when you have that youth system that led to a couple years of success for Tallaght where we were making league and cup finals, we did two doubles back to back.

‘I don’t think you see that success without the youth system.

‘That was one thing that the club can be grateful that Philly Preston got started for us. A

‘ny young lads coming through now would all be a result of the work that Philly did with the club way back when.”

The team are back in action this Saturday as they host BGF Ravens with the match currently scheduled to kick off at 12pm Saturday afternoon in Tymon Park.