When we were kings: two great upsets in schools rugby never to be repeated

Once upon a time we dressed in wine and gold and took the bus to Lansdowne Road. And we won’t ever forget what happened that day.

There’s been a lot of old familiar rhyme this week about what separates the good teams from the great ones, and there’s little doubt any more which way this Ireland rugby team is going – no matter what outcome unfolds at the Aviva Stadium late on Saturday afternoon.

What unfolded there this same weekend 40 years ago separated two teams in another way; a good team, and one which went where no team had gone before – and in another way since. In there lies a lasting lesson and one always worth revisiting.

It wasn’t Ireland beating England 25-15 in the Five Nations finale on the Saturday; that was no great surprise, Ireland having put England to the sword at Twickenham the year before. Ireland ended up sharing the championship with France that year.

The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times

---

Big is not always beautiful but Leinster and Toulouse has all the right ingredients

---

Munster’s Simon Zebo to retire from rugby at the end of the season

---

Champions Cup final: Leinster ready for ‘difficult conversations’ before taking on Toulouse

---

The chance to make Irish rugby history beckoned the following day, Sunday March 20th, at least in the schoolboy game, when De La Salle Churchtown faced Castleknock College in the 1983 Leinster Schools Senior Cup. Revolution was in the air – and it felt that way even going along as an 11-year-old, in fifth class of the primary school, some of us having never thrown a rugby ball before in our lives (and in some cases since).

Traditionally played on St Patrick’s Day, the game was put back to the Sunday to help spare the pitch at the old Lansdowne Road, part of the deal being RTÉ would keep their cameras in place, which meant the final went on TV live for the first time.

[ Gonzaga win a first Senior Cup after dethroning champions Blackrock in final for the ages ]

After Blackrock College won the first Cup final back in 1887, the competition soon became the establishment of the rugby-playing private schools of Leinster, even more so after the free education scheme was introduced in 1967, given so few rugby-playing schools opted to join it.

So going along that Sunday in March, few, if anyone, gave the school a chance. Particularly given our still-developing suburb of Churchtown. De La Salle didn’t even field a schools rugby team until 1957, starting in the Junior Cup. Just over a decade later they contested their first Senior Cup final, losing to Belvedere 14-11. Just under a decade on they made a second final, in 1975, losing that too, 11-7 to Blackrock.

Castleknock were favourites and for good reason, coming through the rough side of the draw (which took out Belvedere, Blackrock and Clongowes); De La Salle, winning only four of their 20 pre-season matches, scraped past Roscrea in their semi-final, 3-0.

For Castleknock, who hadn’t won the Cup since 1965 (and still haven’t), the match would likely be won by their superior pack, and nearly was. All the newspaper accounts of that day are still here in the black-and-white of the Cup souvenir edition of Wine and Gold, our 1983 school magazine.

Con Houlihan dedicated his entire Evening Press column to the match report, his opening sentiments eloquently capturing the mood: “A Senior Schools Cup final is more harrowing than any climactic game you see at Croke Park or Dalymount or Wembley – because for almost all the protagonists it is the one and only chance. It is a final in the most complete sense of the word.”

At one point De La Salle might have feared their final was almost over: Castleknock went 6-3 up early in the second half, that second penalty kick from Karl Rowe quite clearly going under the posts (both touch judges waving their flags knee-high to signal exactly that), only for the match referee to whistle for the score.

But De La Salle, captained by Michael McArdle, feared not the obvious: their scrum in fact dominated and two game-closing tries, one converted, sealed their win – thus breaking through the super elite and the status quo to win the Leinster Senior Cup, the first non-fee paying school to do so too.

De La Salle hung on – the entire second half spent defending their line at the old Bath Avenue end, outhalf David Harmon, already an Irish international wrestler, making one late, late match-saving tackle. De La Salle won 10-6

Castleknock never surrendered, David Walsh writing in The Irish Press: “Castleknock tried to fight back, but without total conviction, and when Salle got their second try, five minutes from time, it was deserved.”

No fluke, in other words. As Houlihan astutely observed at the end of his column, De La Salle outhalf Brian Glennon “played as if enjoying himself – and his panache surely affected his comrades”.

Glennon was only 15, in his Leaving Cert year, so was back again in 1984 (when with Jim Stynes on board, De La Salle lost a narrow second round tie to eventual champions Terenure), and again in 1985, when they made that further point in history by becoming the last non-fee paying school to lift the Cup (this time with Glennon as captain).

We were in First Year then, the memories that bit more vivid, this one an incredibly hard contest. Scrumhalf David O’Connor dropped a goal with his left foot, wing Aidan Fitzgerald kicked a penalty, before Glennon scored the only try of the game.

Then De La Salle hung on – the entire second half spent defending their line at the old Bath Avenue end, outhalf David Harmon, already an Irish international wrestler, making one late, late match-saving tackle. De La Salle won 10-6.

Almost as incredible again, De La Salle then lost the 1986 final, to Blackrock. With a little more luck the crazy truth is they might have won four-in-a-row.

From both the 1983 and 1985 winning teams, Glennon was the only one to win a single Irish cap, coming on as a replacement against France in the Five Nations, in 1993.

Harmon went on to wrestle for Ireland in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, in the 82kg freestyle, narrowly losing his opening contest against Haitham Jibara from Iraq on points.

Things and time have changed since then, and De La Salle is a long way from the rugby school it once was, coming a long way in other ways too (going co-ed from next term). The elite modern preserve of the game suggests their feat won’t be repeated. Still, that team left a lasting impression on all of us in the school at the time: that we may not be better than everyone else, but we’re just as good. And that, believe it or not, so much of sporting success comes down to belief.

Just ask Gonzaga.