Lead role on and off the field

Rugby All-Ireland League: John O'Sullivan talks to the St Mary's player/coach Peter Smyth as the club gear up for Division Two for the first time since the inception of the AIL League

One month shy of his 27th birthday Peter Smyth will lead St Mary's College on to the pitch against Old Crescent at Rosbrien on Saturday. Not alone will he be the oldest player on the team but along with Steven Hennessy, he's part of the coaching ticket.

This season marks a watershed in the St Mary's history as it is the first time since the inception of the AIB All-Ireland League the club will play in Division Two. Smyth desperately wants last season's relegation from the elite to prove a temporary aberration.

From the heady days of Division One success, the club slid towards relegation; sixth, fifth and 10th in successive seasons before the final ignominy of relegation. Brent Pope spent five years at the helm but provincial commitments and injuries effectively neutered ambition. The first-team squad lacked depth and callow youth hardly constituted the cavalry.

Times have changed as the AIL drifts again towards its amateur birthplace. Youth must have its fling. St Mary's have a young side and a young coach with ambition. He's completed the IRFU Level 2 coaching course amid suggestions there are no parameters as to what he can achieve.

"All during my rugby career I worked with great coaches from my time in school at Blackrock through to the Leinster days."

Those include Eddie O'Sullivan, Declan Kidney, Niall O'Donovan, John McClean, Willie Anderson and Matt Williams. Smyth was particularly enamoured with Williams.

"Whatever they say he was a fantastic rugby coach and I'm trying to introduce some of the things he taught me, like proper nutrition, good weights programmes and things like that. We're lucky to be able to use the new state-of-the-art facilities at St Mary's College school."

He borrows from others, adapts ideas and comes up with a few of his own. The enthusiasm is evident. Smyth has accomplished a great deal in his playing career and while he accepts his professional days are probably a thing of the past, it hasn't dulled his ambition.

"We have been back in training since July 5th and the attitude has been great. This is a young team with plenty of potential and it's up to Steve (Hennessy) and myself to tap that. We have agreed with the squad there will be no match fees but at the end of the season there'll be a holiday.

"I am an admirer of the GAA philosophy about playing for the jersey, the club. We try and look after the players in terms of gear and sandwiches after training, proper medical care and those things. There is pressure on to get back our Division One status and to state otherwise would be wrong but there is an awareness that this is a young team.

"We're fortunate to have a talented group of individuals that stem from a Leinster Schools' Senior Cup winning team, another that lost a final and last year's team that could have beaten Blackrock."

Smyth is employed full-time at the club but concedes it's not a 15-year career. He helps out in coaching at Templeogue College and he'll bung his CV into the IRFU for an Elite Player Development Officer position should it arise.

There are signs the ambitions of the club may be fulfilled. St Mary's won the recent Navan High Tens, beating the Bradford Bulls Academy in the final, and have qualified for the semi-finals of the Leinster Senior Cup. In Smyth they have a person, quite apart from his ability as a player, whose love of the sport can't but galvanise those around him.

He knows Saturday represents a huge hurdle but there was nothing naive about Smyth as a player and there is nothing to suggest it'll be any different now he has embraced a coaching remit. St Mary's have chosen well.