Last Saturday in the Mansion House in Dublin among the Stars of Leinster Rugby, NUIM Barnhall RFC was awarded the Caterburry NZ Senior Club of the Year.
This was a the cream on top of a fantastic Season for the Club from Mini’s to Youths to our Senior Mens and Womans teams.
The Work that was put into all the teams and events hosted by NUIM Barnhall RFC by all the parents, Players, Coaches and Friends really put us over the top and allowed the Leinster Awards committee to award us with this great honor.
This is the first time our Club has been awarded this honor and it shows we are going from strength to strength.
Any club big or small is lead by one person and this award nobody will argue was spearheaded by this years President Michael Mousely who has worked tirelessly throughout the season bringing in new sponsors, organising the redevelopment of the club house bar to the beside the scenes work he has done with all sections of the club to bring us to forefront of Leinster Rugby along with his Vice President Sam Cawley and the Executive.
Since our creation in 1969 by the Irish Meet Packers who started playing with one team in the Leinster J5 O’Connor Cup to today were our Senior Team plays in the All Ireland League Div 2A and we train 7 senior teams, as will as many age grade youth and mini teams for both boys and girls.
The Award by Leinster Rugby is for all the achievements across all levels within the club over the season.
With a lot of hard work being put in by so many this season, just to list some of the extraordinary people who put so much into our club this year and this events and awards we won along the way.
The Season Started with a bang as former NUIM Barnhall RFC President and Long Serving Member Mr. Paul Deering became the Leinster Rugby President which saw all Paul’s Work over the many years with both NUIM Barnhall and Leinster come to fruition and what a year he had with Leinster with a great Heineken Cup campaign and now seeing Leinster in the Playoffs for the Rabo Pro 12.
The First big event of the season was The Gathering were we hosted over 500 friends and family of NUIM Barnhall RFC back in the summer of 2013 which was put together by a great team of people lead by Ronan Browne, our U10’s & U17’s coach and Eddie Fitzgerald our Director of Rugby.
Our Hosting of 4 South African youth representative sides who travelled with over 100 players to take on our U14’s, U15’s, U17’s & U19 teams last Summer and with a visit from Leinste Stars Quinn Roux and Richard Strauss made it a fantastic day for the Club.
When the season got under way back in September our Premier A and Premier B teams fresh form AIL Promotion to Div 2A would have a great start to the season as they kicked off the group stages of the Leinster Senior and Seconds Shields with maximum points taken against the Likes of Tullamore RFC, Greystones RFC, Navan RFC and Boyne RFC to progress to the knock our stages were they both won through to the finals with Both teams facing Naas RFC. Both Finals were an epic display of rugby by our Kildare Sides with our NUIM Barnhall RFC Blue Bulls winning both finals and taking both Titles. a Great start for Head Coach and Rugby Master Mind Dennis Bowes.
Our Premier A’s lead by Captain Barry Dunne and Head coach Dennis Bowes had a great start to the Regular Season in the All Ireland League with 8 wins in their 1st season in the Div and taking on and winning against some big teams along the way.
Our Premier B’s lead by Eoin O’Sullivan had a wonderful season in the newly formed Leinster Metro Div 2 winning 12 out of 13 games in the league to put the in a playoff final against Naas RFC again for the title which they won 20 points to 5 to add a third title to the NUIM Barnhall RFC list this season and 4 titles in 2 seasons for Last years U20’s Coach and This years Seconds Coach David Kirk.
With our Ladies Team doing great work throughout the season with a heavy League Campaign, they still made time to host some fantastic Nights in the Club raising a lot of money for the club along the way with their Ladies and Gents night and a packed house for their Quiz night with Coach Neil Beatty and Players Sarah Sheils, Elaine Rayfus putting in some great work to make it happen.
Our Junior Rugby Section managed to field 3 teams this year again with our Development team going great in the league and our Butchers putting in a Massive amount of work bringing in and training new players which allowed them to field a second side in the season which as a great achievement lead by Manager Eoin Tighe and Coaches Stephen Carburry and Keith Bewley.
Our Youths had another wonderful season as we fielded teams across all age grade levels from U13’s to U20”s with 4 semi finals and 3 finals for our youths and our Super U13’s Team winning the Castleknock 7’s Tournament it really shows how strong our Youth Development program lead by George Furlong.
Our Mini’s is as strong as ever with this season proving to one of the best yet as they traveled the length and breadth of Leinster visiting many teams and taking part in Blitz after Blitz along the way and in most levels be able to field 3 teams per blitz for both boys and girls teams. Our U11 Mini’s achieved celebrity status by Winning the All Ireland Lidl Irish Haka competition and with over 8 thousand hits on youtube it really showed the pride and passion our Players and Parents have for their club, which also lead them to win the Best group award in the Leixlip St. Patricks Day Parade were they preformed their Version of the HAKA. “The Irish HAKA Company” should be very proud.
Our Mini U12 team had their own Celebrity followers this season as they had a fantastic tour Funrasier in which International Ref and Rugby Legend Mr. Nigel Owens held a night for the U12’s in the Celbridge Manor Hotel which helped the U12’s raise a lot of money of the Tour as well as the club.
Our Mini Girls held a very sucessful Tag Blitz towards the end of the season which saw many Leinster Clubs come to Parsonstown to take part which lead by our Girls Coach Aoife Donovan.
With our Partnership with NUIM going into it’s 6 year now, they University it producing some wonderful results both on and off the pitch with the likes of Current Scholar Matthew Mellotte earning caps for the Connacht U20’s side and Orlaith phelan Making the Leinster Development Team and our Freshers making to the All Ireland Universitys Final in DCU, it has been a great year for NUIM Rugby lead by Director Of Rugby In NUIM Dennis Bowes.
NUIM Rugby is now fielding 3 teams with a men’s Senior and Freshers sides and also a ladies side, the future is bright for our great partnership.
The list of work done and carried out by so man within the club this year is to many to mention in one post, between the 5K fun run, to the Scholars of NUIM doing the annual clean up week in Maynooth, to our Poker nights and Mini Disco’s, the building of our Fantastic New ladies Changing room and Gym lead by Noel Dillon to our sucessful Golf Classic and Christmas party and the excellent work done by Julie Cillford our Social Director who has managed to reinvigorate the club house bar with it’s now 8ft by 4ft HD big screen for all the matches.
If you wish to see in pictures or read some our stories from this fantastic season in Parsonstown, please check out our Galleries section or read through some of our past posts.
The Regular Season may be over but we still have plenty to do, with our Golf Classic Coming up as well as our own Awards nights for our Mini’s, Youth and Seniors as well our Our Summer Tag League and Rugby Summer Camps, Parsontown will never close it’s doors.
Well done to all the NUIM Barnhall RFC Blue Bull family and take great pride in what you all have achieved this season. It has been a long road and we are not finished yet.
THE PRIDE, THE PASSION, THE BLUE.
