St Mary’s College, champions in 2000 and 2012, are back in Division 1A of the Energia All-Ireland League and are aiming high again.
In advance of the season which starts on Saturday week, the big four of Terenure, Cork Con, Clontarf and Lansdowne have been almost carved in stone for the last three seasons.
But the signing of Munster centre Dan Goggin and Ulster backrower Greg Jones is a statement of intent by St Mary’s before their opening game against Clontarf at Templeville Road.
The club ended a six-year absence from the top tier by running away with Division 1B last season when winning all but one of their 18 matches and securing promotion with several weeks to spare.
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The division’s leading points scorer with 161 was St Mary’s inside centre Mick O’Gara, who attributes last season’s upturn to the signing of new players and early season momentum after a preseason training camp to Valencia.
“When we came back from that, everything just seemed to click in our first three games and from there we just really kicked on. Things just fell into place. Other than the three or four lads that we got in and that training camp, there was nothing massively different than years previous.”
He says they targeted three wins and 12 points in those opening three games, and the bonus in every sense was that they took 15 points from beating Buccaneers (41-25), Old Wesley (38-22) and UCC (31-25).
“The rest of the leading teams had won two and lost one and we were six or seven points ahead after three games. You’re looking at the table and thinking, even if we lose, we’re still going to be first.”
So that trend continued for the rest of the season, and not even the departure of head coach Seán Cronin to Munster, to be replaced by his assistant Mark McHugh, disrupted their rhythm. McHugh, a long-serving player with the club, had been let go by Lansdowne and like the team was highly motivated to prove himself.
“It was pretty seamless. We are very close-knit and even when Seán left there was no drop in standards,” says O’Gara.
Looking at recent examples, Shannon survived for a season after promotion, albeit they were relegated via the playoffs at the end of last season, while City of Armagh also survived. This suggests St Mary’s ought to be capable of doing so, yet clearly they have loftier ambitions than that.
“I suppose no one would want to admit that we just want to survive, but we definitely don’t. That’s not the goal. When you sign the likes of Dan Goggin and Greg Jones, you can’t say your target is just survival. We already had a good squad but that’s a statement from the club. We want to compete,” says O’Gara.
The much-criticised Templeville Road main pitch has been relaid and, in another example of the club’s status, O’Gara cites the litany of former Irish internationals and Lions whose photographs decorate the clubhouse walls. One of them, Johnny Sexton, is sure to be an interested spectator at some home games this season, given he and O’Gara are first cousins.
“He has been a massive influence,” says the 23-year-old, which are words one wouldn’t necessarily expect from an O’Gara about a Sexton, or indeed vice versa!
“With his busy schedule of travelling and training he wouldn’t have had time to give me one-to-one sessions too often. But about three or four times, in my mid-teens, when it was most important, he gave me one-to-one here,” says O’Gara, speaking in the Bective Rangers clubhouse.
“They were two-to-ones actually, with Richie Murphy and Johnno at the same time. That was special. He was massively helpful, with little bits of advice he would have given me that otherwise I would have practised differently. He also gave me mountains of rugby gear over the years,” adds O’Gara.
The odd ticket too. His mum, Rachel, and Sexton’s mum, Clare, are sisters and when Sexton captained Ireland in his last Ireland international at the Aviva Stadium on that memorable St Patrick’s Day Grand Slam coronation in March 2023, O’Gara sat alongside Clare.
Being banished to the second tier of club rugby for six seasons would only have been compounded by local rivals Terenure becoming such serious players in the AIL by reaching the last three finals and winning two seasons ago.
“At least they only won one,” quips O’Gara, which nonetheless underlines a genuine if healthy rivalry.
St Mary’s were well up for their opening Leinster Senior Cup win over Terenure in preseason and word is that even before promotion was copper-fastened, both lunches before the two derbies with Terenure, at Templeville Road and Lakelands Park, were already sold out.
They’ll come from far and wide for those two. Mary’s are back.
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