By Jamie Curley
The 24/25 Irish rugby season is well and truly underway, with enthralling rugby being played across the country on a weekly basis. Deep within the core of Irish rugby, there is a rugby league that showcases some of the country’s finest upcoming talent, an influx of ex-pros and riveting rugby along with it.
Created in 1990, the All Ireland League, or the AIL, is the national league system for Irish club rugby in the country. It is the second highest level of rugby, after the provincial rugby clubs that play professionally in the United Rugby Championship.
The AIL has been responsible for hosting many of Ireland’s greatest talents in the early stages of their rugby careers. Many of Ireland’s crop of young talent are encouraged to play at club level before progressing to provincial level.
The AIL’s format isn’t too dissimilar to the standard football pyramid system, with the AIL divided into five divisions of ten clubs. There’s one automatic promotion and relegation slot at both ends of the league table in each division, with the final spot for promotion/relegation contested with play-offs between the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th placed teams and the 9th placed team in the division above.
Despite the AIL boasting 50 clubs scattered across the country, Connacht only has four clubs in the AIL, with Galway’s Corinthians and Galwegians comprising half of the province’s output.
Both clubs are on the ascendency after earning promotion in their respective divisions last season but have experienced varying fortunes that come with the challenge of a new division.
Located in Cloonacauneen, Corinthians currently reside in Division 2A in the mid-pack of the AIL pyramid. After six years of stagnation in Division 2B, Corinthians finally achieved a long overdue promotion with victory in the playoffs against UL Bohemian back in April.
Michael Harding, Corinthians head coach and director of rugby used his wealth of experience in the AIL with Nenagh Ormond and Buccaneers to help steer the club into a strong position. It has been an electric start to their campaign as they currently lead the way at the top of Division 2A with seven games played. The step up a division didn’t seem to intimate the players as they were quietly confident of a strong finish.
“We wouldn’t have been big goal-setters,” said Michael. “I felt we have the squad that could easily go back-to-back playoffs. That seems to be the case that we are going to be capable of getting top four”.
“This is our third year together as a group of coaches and players and they’re growing and getting older every year. So we felt the step up wouldn’t be massive for them”.
The squad saw 16 departures in Harding’s first season, requiring an influx of young players to make the step up to senior AIL rugby. However, it was a “blessing as a coach” for Harding as he got the opportunity to galvanise these young players as a team that can challenge in the future.
“So the difference between two seasons ago and last season was they were a year older, they were a year more experienced.”
“We had a heartbreak of a really poor playoff semi-final defeat to Dungannon and we learnt a lot from that and we learnt how to deal with a year better and how not to have the slip-ups that we ended up not going in in good form to that playoff”.
“So we addressed that and most of that was just down to the players being a year older and a year more experienced and having that first full year together in AIL.”
The strong momentum of Corinthians doesn’t seem like it will extinguish anytime soon with a stable output of young players progressing through the ranks and with their eyes towards the top flight of AIL, Harding believes that the “explosion [of Corinthians] will keep happening for a few years”.
Meanwhile, only a mere 6km away on the Old Dublin Road are Galwegians RFC, who are looking to make their climb back up the AIL ranks after finding themselves falling down the ladder in recent years.
Celebrating their centenary back in 2022, Galwegians were once at the summit of the AIL only just ten years ago. Playing in the top flight of Irish club rugby during arguably Connacht Rugby’s golden era of rugby where they won the Pro12 in 2016, it has been a rocky road since then, falling to the fifth tier but securing promotion with a tightly contested play-off final against Dolphin RFC.
Galwegians’ return to 2B has been turbulent with seven defeats in seven games, but that doesn’t tell you the whole story. All games have been engrossing to watch, with not a single game lost by fewer than five points. Galwegians head coach Brendan Guilfoyle explains their rocky start and how they look to use this as fuel and motivation to overcome this tough period.
“We lost a couple of players from last season’s squad,” explained Guilfoyle. “And it definitely played a part in managing the final quarter of games where we put ourselves to be in contention of winning games and we haven’t been able to finish it off”.
“We got in some new players and it took a time for them to get embedded with the team and they’re also quite young as well. I think a little bit of inexperience in these situations.
“We want these results to hurt because that is a motivation to get better, but we’re just trying to reassure them they have the capabilities and once [the results] start to come, they will be a tough team to beat”.
The key to their approach is to take one game at a time and focus on the final block of fixtures before the Christmas break. Hopes are still high as their accumulation of bonus points has prevented them from being at the foot of the division and look to return to winning ways.
“ If we can get two wins before Christmas, we believe that this club could be a top-four team. We’re still going to aim for fourth place and get it to a play-off.
“That’s going to be the aim anyway, to keep plugging away and to get there and get as much out of this group of really talented young players as we possibly can”.
Indeed, both teams have the privilege of having an exciting crop of young talents lighting up the park, with a selection of players making their international debuts at youth level in recent years. Players such as Hugh Gavin and Finn Treacy from Galwegians, and Matthew and John Devine from Corinthians, have starred in Irelands’ U20 Six Nations and World Cup campaigns.
Both coaches are in agreement with the AIL’s success in fostering young players and as a platform to kickstart their careers. With Corinthians, Harding believes that it’s integral for them to make the progression from underage to adult rugby.
“I think the AIL is a hugely, hugely important part of the Irish rugby ecosystem,” he said. “It’s hugely important for your high-end PTS and NTS (National Talent Squad) players that are breaking through at 18-20 year olds, that AIL is there for them and they get to step up to play adults’ rugby and men’s rugby”.
“We have to play a brand of rugby that’s not typical, I suppose, of the AIL. I think that it excites guys coming out from the academy and the sub-academy that they are playing in that environment”.
Guilfoyle shares a similar view, as exposure to club rugby at such a young game helped develop their Ireland U20 prospects last season:
“I would say the All Ireland League, even if we were at 2C last year, that’s the lowest level of it, the exposure to rugby, week in and week out for Finn and Hugh probably cemented their game with the Irish 20s in the Six Nations and the World Cup”.
“Obviously, to have the professional coaching day to day, we’ve been able to be the big fish in the smaller ponds. There’s a lot of learning too, playing adult rugby can often be a big step up as well, so I think it sets young players up really well”.
Nobody knows what the future holds for both clubs, but the steady rise in recent years bodes well not only for themselves but the future of Connacht rugby at an amateur level.
Both sides return to action on 5 December as Galwegians play at Crowley Park against Malahide in pursuit of their first win of the season. Meanwhile, Corinthians make the trip to Banbridge as they look to resume their position at the top of the standings.