A Limerick nephew of mine is an avid rugby man, and a life-long member of the Old Crescent RFC faithful, both as player and supporter. A few years ago, we were discussing the game in the presence of his then 10-year-old son.
"And who do you hate, Alec?", my nephew suddenly asked the boy.
"Garryowen!" came the instant answer.
"Teach `em young!", the nephew commented, proudly, club loyalties being intense in Limerick to put it mildly.
Teaching them young is certainly what Brian O'Rourke, the Leinster Cricket Union's first full-time development officer, is doing. Now mid-way through the second term of his initial three-year contract, he reckons that he has already given over 4,000 schoolkids, girls and boys, an introduction to the game.
That introduction has come through kwik cricket - which originated in Australia, where else? - and O'Rourke's target areas are primary schools which are close to established cricket clubs. "It's a perfect school-yard sport", says O'Rourke, "it's very easily set up with plastic stumps, bats and balls, nobody gets hurt, so in the mixed schools, girls and boys can play together.
"Kwik cricket helps the kids' natural co-ordination, their throwing and catching, and really it has gone from strength to strength," says O'Rourke. He is the only development officer in Leinster (and one of only two such cricket full-timers on the entire island) and is essentially a one-man band.
"I don't have an office, I work from my car with my lap-top, it's really rewarding, but maybe in time we'll be able to get a bit more help organised," says the Pembroke all-rounder.
Given that he is spreading the cricket gospel among non-believers, so to speak, it's fitting that O'Rourke himself has absolutely no family background in the game. Born in Carlow in an Irish-speaking family, he spent his school summers in Ring College in Waterford, and played Gaelic football for Eire Og in Carlow.
"We moved to Dublin when I was 12, to live in a house beside the Pembroke club. At first, I had no interest in cricket, but then slowly got involved and haven't looked back since," he says.
O'Rourke's fluency in Irish at times has been a help. "Many of the teachers would be from the country and they'd be very strong on the GAA, but I'm lucky that I can speak the cupla focail as Gaeilge, they like that approach and then you're welcomed with open arms.
"Sometimes, I suppose, it's perceived as a so-called foreign game. But once the teachers see a kwik cricket session and see how much enjoyment the kids get out of it, any latent antipathy is brushed away.
"Anyway, at the end of the day, no matter what sports these kids might go on to play as they get older I think kwik cricket will stand to them. The hand-eye-ball co-ordination is a help, whatever sports and games you play."
Initially what he looks at is the potential and the location of the schools he targets. Ideally, those close to areas where there are established cricket clubs - like Terenure, Sandymount, Cabra, Clontarf, Malahide and Fingal.
"That's stage one," O'Rourke says. "If we can get cricket developed and established in those schools, we can broaden the horizons a bit, and then go further afield".
The interest is undoubtedly there, and O'Rourke is running registration evenings for the clubs. Last week, 25 new youngsters came along to join Phoenix, for example, and a similar influx is expected this week.
"Too many kids for the clubs to handle is something I don't want to hear about," says O'Rourke, semiseriously.
"The growth in girls cricket, non-existent in other parts of Ireland, has been great. I push it big time in girls schools, for it's a fact of life that if more girls join cricket clubs more boys are going to get involved as well," he says.
O'Rourke organised two major kwik cricket tournaments over Easter, northside and southside, the respective winners being Scoil Realt na Mara from Skerries and St Joseph's of Terenure. He hopes to stage three final play-offs, two on a home-and-away basis, and then, if the score is one-all, a final to be played at Castle Avenue during Ireland's matches against Zimbabwe next month. "That would give the kids the chance to play in front of a big crowd," he says.
Apart from kwik cricket, O'Rourke is heavily involved in under-age coaching which starts at the end of the summer and continues through the off-season, at the new indoor venue at King's Hospital School - all voluntary work by the LCU's coaching committee, he stresses. On top of all that, he coaches the Leinster under-15 was well as the national under-15 squads.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Brian O'Rourke is doing his damndest to ensure that as many kids as possible are given a start in one of the world's great games. And who can say what brilliant talents will emerge in time thanks to his efforts?
