RUGBY - Division Two focus: John O'Sullivan talks to Myles O'Reilly, who hopes that his 19th and last season in club rugby will end with promotion to Division One.

"I, Myles O'Reilly, do solemnly swear to play club rugby for a 19th season on the express condition that I am permitted at 37 years of age to retire thereafter."

It wasn't quite that formal but the sentiments were similar. On Saturday, O'Reilly will captain Barnhall in their opening fixtures of the AIB League Division Two against Young Munster at Tom Clifford Park, hoping that in his last season - "There is no way they will persuade me to stay on this time" - he can steer the club to a place among the elite.

After five years at St Mary's College, eight at Old Belvedere and now six at his present club, the centre confesses that he wouldn't have stayed on had Barnhall managed to gain a place in Division One last season instead of narrowly losing out. "I would have retired if we had gone up. We didn't, so that gave them to scope to come back and ask me to play on, and I agreed."

There is nothing coy about the club's aspirations as articulated by O'Reilly. "We want to win the division, have always wanted to win whatever league in which we played."

It is an ambition largely realised in recent years for this upwardly mobile club. They won promotion from Leinster League Division Three in the 1995-96 season, and captured the Division Two and One titles in the following three years while also winning the round robin series in 1998-99 that saw them earn their senior status.

In their first season in AIB League Division Four they were promoted as runners-up, an achievement they matched the following season in heading for Division Two.

Last year they were a whisker away from being promoted to the top tier of Irish rugby - not bad for a club founded in 1969 whose roots were in the now defunct Irish Meat Packers (IMP).

The company employed up to 1,000 people in the 1960s and Barnhall teams were comprised of IMP employees.

They won the Dublin Business Houses Cup in 1971 but the club was slow to grow, principally because it did not own the land on which it played and could not therefore build a clubhouse.

Several approaches were made to IMP over the years but it wasn't until after the factory closed down in 1985 that a deal to buy 14 acres was concluded. Fund raising produced a new clubhouse opened by the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson on June 29th, 1991.

It would not be long, primarily because of their extensive commitment to mini-rugby, before the club started to produce the numbers to take them to where they find themselves today.

O'Reilly, while acknowledging the great strides the club has made under coach Ian Morgan (in charge since 1996), feels that teams will be better prepared to cope with Barnhall this season.

"I felt that last season we got the jump on teams because they didn't know what to expect.

"We will be a known quantity now and that will ensure that things are more difficult; we're not going to be able to get away with half of the stuff we managed last year. Pre-season has been disrupted by injuries to a significant number of players, but having said that, the only one missing on Saturday will be Riaan Erasmus, who has a broken finger.

"We have a slightly bigger and heavier pack this season. Liam Mooney, who has played with London Irish and Bristol before but was out of the game for a while with injury, is a big addition to the front row. Scrumhalf Eoin Burke has returned following a year in Australia, so that has been a huge boost to an area in which cover was a little patchy.

"We know that we have to jump out of the blocks quickly, as we face Young Munster away on Saturday and then in the third match we have to travel to Limerick again, this time to play Old Crescent. These are two of the top teams in the division and certainly strong contenders to win promotion.

"I don't think there are any bad sides. On a personal level, I would love to be able to lead the club into Division One. That would be a fantastic way to finish and I do mean finish, this time."

DIVISION TWO LINE-UP: Ballynahinch, Barnhall, Bective Rangers, DLSP, Dolphin, Dublin University, Greystones, Malone, Midleton, Old Belvedere, Old Crescent, Portadown, Sunday's Well, Thomond, UCC, Young Munster.