High-Flying Cashel Expecting To Face ‘Fully Loaded’ Navan

Rugby has always been a big part of the life of Pat O’Donoghue, and the Cashel RFC President is hoping to see his club continue their impressive start to the Energia All-Ireland League season this weekend.

For O’Donoghue, sport in Cashel has been a big influence on his life. Whether that be hurling with Cashel King Cormacs or playing rugby with Cashel, he has been deeply rooted in both. Rugby continues to be a big part of his life, with three of his sons all playing the sport.

Fearghail O’Donoghue played with the Ireland U20’s back in 2021, while another of his sons Hermann plays for Cork Con. His third son Patrick is still in secondary school but has always been involved in rugby for many years now. O’Donoghue is now in his fourth term as president and has done so after being chairman of King Cormacs, two clubs that have been linked for many years.

“I am into my fourth year as president. I was approached four years ago by Frank Fitzgerald, a great friend of mine. Great rugby man as well. He played inter provincial with Connacht and all that.

He was the chairman, and I was at a loose end. I wasn’t involved with the GAA side or any other club. And he asked me, would I be interested in taking the job. And I couldn’t believe he asked me, number one. But when I thought about it, you know, I’d be delighted to take it on.

I’ve been delighted ever since because I’m kinda unique. I was chairman of the GAA club in Cashel King Cormacs for 7 years, and now I’ve completed four years as president of Cashel Rugby Club, which to my knowledge has never been done before.

I was delighted to take on the job. I love the buzz. I love the people that we work with on the committee. I love the players and what we’re doing in the club is you need to stand back and watch it because it’s growing at a rate of knots and the developments we’re doing. It’s all about the future and, you know, the legacy we believe.”

O’Donoghue has been a proud servant to Cashel Rugby Club both on and off the field in recent years, but also did similar for another big club in King Cormacs, a team he lined out for in the 1991 Munster Senior Final, which they recorded a historic win. Their last occasion in Munster until this year’s Intermediate campaign.

Hurling was the predominant sport in O’Donoghue’s family at the time, a Kerry father and Meath mother had strong Gaelic Football roots as they settled in a hurling hotbed. However in his teenage years, a man called Mick Fogarty asked if they would play U16 rugby for Cashel, and that as they say was that.

Full-Back on that 1991 winning team, O’Donoghue reflected on how many played for both clubs as one would get you fit for the other. Along with that the pair brought success to the local area with how well they worked together.

“I was kind of a late developer to the rugby scene. We were GAA, Cashel King Cormacs born and bred like. My father was a Kerryman, big into Gaelic Football, and my mother was from County Meath, another football side. But when we came to Cashel, it was predominantly hurling. We would have come up the ranks with the King Cormacs.

And then a man named Mick Fogarty approached my father one time to see if he could get the two Donoghues, myself and my brother Paul to play rugby at under 16 level for Cashel. And my father’s reply was, I don’t care what they play so long as they stay out of trouble. So we started playing rugby at 15-16 years  of age. Won the Father Mahony Shield, got to love the game, got to love the club. We played all the way up to the senior level.

We’re not the traditional rugby story. A Lot of guys like me used to play rugby for the Winter and GAA for the summer and you’d maintain a level of fitness all the way through the year, which was great at the time. TJ Conley, Timmy Maloney, Barry Maloney, they were all GAA guys that played rugby.

So there was a great kind of crossover, and there was never any issue with it. Once you were playing something, you’re getting fit for the GAA season. The GAA season would get you fit for the rugby season, and they worked hand in hand, it was great.

But I think that the synergies between the two clubs have worked well for both clubs. And success has built on the back of that. Back in the nineties, we’d say hurling was predominantly the big game. I was on the Munster Club King Cormac’s team, I played full back on that, and all the way along, I was then with the rugby club as well.”

Cashel were promoted to the All Ireland League ahead of the 2011-12 season, going unbeaten they earned promotion to Division 2A and have been a staple ever since in the Division. For years now the Tipperary club have been fighting for that lucrative promotion to follow in Nenagh’s footsteps and move into 1B.

O’Donoghue remembers prior to that All Ireland League promotion the club played at the lowest grade of Junior Rugby. Past president Derry O’Connor however was a real catalyst in helping the club get to where they are to this day, the club grew its resources and marched up the Division. O’Donoghue praised those involved at the top table of the club at the time including O’Connor, who planted seeds that are showing fruition to this day.

“You’re going back 15, 20 years, when I played with Cashel. We were Division 3 Junior and we came to a stage where if we got relegated out of Division 3 Junior, there was no league below us. We were in that type of trouble.

But we got a new president in at the time, Derry O’Connor, and he started putting resources and ideas behind it. And we went from 3 to 2 to 1. Won the Junior Cup, won the Challenge Plate, and then got into the AIL. And the first season in the AIL, we were unbeaten all year.

That’s down to intelligent guys at the top, it’s down to family involvement, there’s some great families in Cashel, you could pick teams out of 4 or 5 families in Cashel. The overall picture with Cashel back then was to start at the youth level and bring them through.

And the likes of Michael O’Brien, Kevin Leamy, Ned Tierney, all these guys, to mention a few. I’m probably not mentioning an awful lot of others. But the work they put in, the foresight that they had, is all showing fruition to the current day.”

O’Donoghue has been very impressed by how Cashel have started the season. With five wins from five games, they are one of only two clubs to achieve that feat, with Galway Corinthians also in Division 2A of the Energia All Ireland League sitting just ahead of them in the table.

The Cashel president admits he would have taken your hand off at the start of the season, if you had predicted this start. Giving big credit to the management and the players for the work that began during the pre season.

“If you’d have said this to me at the start of the season that we’d be five games in with five wins and four bonus points, I would have taken the hand and all of you, because it’s a really really tough league.

The start we made is credit to the management team and the players. They started early preseason in the middle of the summer. They worked really hard in aspects of fitness, diet, nutrition, all that kind of stuff. When the season commenced, then we hit the ground running, and we’re really happy to be where we are.”

Cashel have produced plenty of top players over the years and to this day they are continuing to hone the local talent and bring in others from outside to don the famous red Cashel jersey. One of those is Ben Twomey, who caught the eye of O’Donoghue while playing for Cork Constitution in an U20’s game a couple of seasons ago.

Along with that Rockwell College has helped that local production line and Tom Tobin is one of those who has shone for Cashel. A former Tipperary footballer, he has six tries this season and is not the only Rockwell alumni in this squad.

Twomey has 26 points tallied this season in the opening five games, his second in Cashel colours. He has been a strong addition to the ranks and O’Donoghue heaped praise on the young man for his goal kicking and the colossal Tobin.

“Ben Twomey in particular I saw him playing first for Cork Con U20’s. He was playing with my own son Hermann in an U20’s game at the back pitch in the Aviva. And even back then, he was kicking penalties from 50 yards out. We were lucky to get him last year. He settled in really well as one of the guys, he’s playing really well. His kick at goal under pressure is phenomenal. He’s a credit to his parents and his family, he’s a great young fella and we’re delighted to have him.

Another man I’d like to mention is Tom Tobin. He came through the Rockwell school setup, played senior football for Tipp and then decided to concentrate his career with Cashel rugby. I think he has five or six tries already this season. This guy is 6 foot 6, he’s a real athlete. And like that goes without saying with everybody else on the panel, they’re so focused and work so hard. They’re a credit to where they came from and their families and friends.”

This weekend they host Navan in Spafield, looking to make it six wins from six to start this season, as we tick to a third of the way through the new season.

Along with that, former Navan coach Ray Moloney who guided the club to 1B promotion in the 2018-19 season, is at the helm in Cashel for his second season. Moloney steered the Meath men to a play-off success over Cashel that season in Spafield. Now he is in the opposite technical area, looking to guide Cashel to promotion.

The landscape of the Energia All ireland League is a competitive one, Navan are winless in ninth spot in the table, but will still pose a threat, admits O’Donoghue.

“That’s the beauty of the competition. Even Saturday now Navan have no win so far this year. But that’s not to say that they’ll come down with all guns blazing. Ray Moloney is our current coach, he brought them up actually to Division 1B. So there’s a lot of sidebar stuff going on as well.

This will be an intense game on Saturday. They’re gonna come down fully loaded. I know that, and we will have to be on our game completely to get the victory again. You can’t take any game for granted in this league.

Even teams heading towards the bottom of the table like they’re fighting for survival. There are a lot of the teams down there, we started strong, that’s not to say that the momentum is gonna be the hard thing to maintain.

If you go back to the time that Navan got promoted to Division 1B, they actually beat us in Cashel in the final game in the playoffs. All that stuff is sitting in the back of our heads. So we won’t be underestimating Navan, by any stretch of imagination. You know, we’ll approach it as we’ve approached all our games so far this year. We have a couple of injuries we’re trying to work on this week. It’s all gearing up for a cracking match again. We’re looking forward to it.”