St Mary's College RFC Yearbook 2020-21

Final preparation
by SCT ahead of
U20’s friendly.
encouraging this to happen. It would be
such a shame for the boys in 6th year in
particular if they were able to represent their
schools and families in a Senior Cup in 2021.
I believe the glass is half full on this and that
our desires will be satisfied. It won’t make
things any easier, but it will be the same for
all schools and whoever wins fair play.
Our SCT Coaching Group runs along similar
lines this season with club Coaches Jamie
Cornett and Mark Sexton at the helm ably
supported by Derek Dowling and John
Wynne with Darren Duffy taking on the role
of Manager this season. An excellent group
with vast experience who have worked
tirelessly on and off the pitch during
lockdown as well. We are also extremely
lucky that one Hugh Hogan, former Club AIL
winning Captain, Club International and
current Leinster IRFU breakdown coach is
involved with this group as a consultant. It is
a pleasure to have him involved and indeed
we are all benefitting from his expertise
gained at Professional level. The Squad itself
is comprised of circa 45 players, a number of
whom played on the Junior Cup Team three
years ago that sadly lost to Blackrock
College 17-24 in the Final at Donnybrook
after a magnificent campaign beating
Newbridge, Terenure and Belvedere along
the way. We have high hopes for this group,
they continue to train hard and like anything
in life one needs a certain amount of luck
along the way. The standards are increasing
all the time and we are fully aware of the
strength of the competition out there across
Leinster. It will in my opinion take a good
squad to beat our group this season. Sean
Healy looks after our Senior 3rds Group this
year and is doing an excellent job in support
to the SCT Group. The evergreen Rodney
O’Donnell and Paul Opperman are looking
after the Senior 4ths this season and as
always deliver excellent coaching and games
training focus to this group. We must not
forget our excellent S&C Coach Luke O’Dea
who oversees the Weights and Conditioning
Programme now recently assisted by new
recruit Daniel Iannelli.
Our Transition Group this season is Coached
by Martin Quinn, Teacher and Dean of that
year ably supported by Student and Club
players Hugo Conway and Ciaran O’Meara.
We are hugely indebted to all our Student
Coaches who do excellent work across the
school and who are maintaining that close
connection with their ‘Alma Mater’, it really
works well for us as a school rugby strategy.
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