Player-Coach Role A ‘Learning Curve’ For Suttonians Star Farrell McCabe

Playing for Suttonians since their promotion to the Women’s Division of the Energia All-Ireland League, Lauren Farrell McCabe has enjoyed the start Suttonians have made to the season, while also relishing her new role as a player-coach.

100 years this year for Suttonians, and with celebrations all around it is a big year for their teams. The emergence of their women’s programme over the last decade has proved very successful.

Winning the Leinster Division 1 Paul Flood Cup, Division 1 League and promotion to the All Ireland League ahead of the 2019/20 season. Winning the conference league title in the 2021-22 season.

Sutts have been building over the years to crack the top four and are hopeful of doing that this season.

A new change of coaching staff for this year got the ground running early, Colin Keogh arrived as head coach, with Niall Mahon as assistant coach and Callum McIntyre joined as S&C.

A familiar face however at the JJ McDowell Memorial Grounds, Farrell McCabe joined up as player-coach, and speaking to IrishRugby.ie, she admits it is a new learning curve but is excited for what the season has in store.

“It’s definitely been a bit of a learning curve. I suppose it was a whole new restructure for us at the start of the season, and it definitely took a little while for things to kinda gel a little bit more which is to be expected in any team, at any level that’s gonna happen. Taking on the player coach role has been really exciting, and it’s kind of something I would love to do in the future.

That’s what I’m hoping to do after I stop playing is to kinda go into more of a coaching role. So it’s really really interesting to kinda get an insight of it this year. It’s definitely tricky, and it’s been a huge learning curve, but I love the challenge, and having Colin and Niall there as well. It kinda helped guide me through it. I think it has been really useful.

And I think we’re wanting to take a lot more as  a coaching team, and you can kinda see that coming into effect on the pitch as well. Obviously, Colin wants to bring a style of play that maybe was slightly different to  what we were used to, but I think every team needs that. You need a refresher or kind of a whole new look every once in a while because we can’t go out playing the same style of rugby year in, year out, because we’d be very quickly found out.

What he’s kind of tried to introduce is brilliant for the team, and he has the girls on board. I think over the last couple of games, we’ve really started to see it click a lot more, which is really exciting. So I’m really excited to see where we can take it, over the next couple of weeks and into after Christmas.”

Before she earned her stripes with Suttonians, originally from Gorey, Lauren went up through the ranks at Gorey RFC, initially with the boys teams before joining the girls programme to senior.

Farrell-McCabe has always been rugby obsessed since her dad brought her to the field in Gorey as a nine year old, that served as the catalyst from putting on the Gorey jersey, to later Suttonians, while also wearing the colours of Leinster at underage and senior and most recently Ulster at senior level.

“I think I was always rugby mad. When we first moved out to Gorey, my dad brought us straight down to the rugby club. I think I was just gone nine, that was absolutely my first love, but I was always into athletics in school as well.

I was just always a bit of a sporty kid. I’d always try everything, especially athletics, but then rugby kinda was my main passion so that completely took over. Me and Kate played a summer of football at one stage, but we quickly found out that wasn’t for us when there was no contact allowed. Rugby has always just been my first, my first love, my biggest passion.

I started off in Gorey, worked my way up through your ranks from U10 boys all the way up to senior women. Kate’s a bit younger than me, so I did not actually get to play with her in Gorey. But when I went to college, it just made more sense to move across to Sutton, especially because they’re playing at a higher league. Obviously, I had bigger ambitions as a player to kind of push on a little bit. So the first time me and Kate got to play together was for Suttonians, which was pretty special as well.”

Joining just after Suttonians jumped up into Division 1 in Leinster, Farrell-McCabe has been a long time servant of Suttonians, known more affectionately as “Loz” to those in Station Road.

Quickly falling in love with the community based nature of Suttonians, in a similar fashion to that of Gorey, Lauren believes that she is part of something special in Suttonians, with plenty of fond memories in the last couple of seasons, the most notable moment was captaining Suttonians when alongside sister Kate, now with the Ireland 7s, they won the Conference Final in 2022. Something Lauren had a big part in making happen.

“Of course I was!”, she chuckled when talking about being the catalyst in Kate joining Suttonians when moving to Dublin for college.

“I joined Suttonians when we had just kinda come up into Division 1, and we were looking to break into AIL. And that would have been under Rob Forbes, when he was around, and then we earned promotion into AIL after some really close battles, with the likes of Tullow.

I think we played Malone a good bit, to kinda try and get into AIL. I’ve been kind of part of Suttonians since the start of our All Ireland League journey, under Rob Forbes and then we’ve kind of just worked to build on that. Obviously the year we won the conference against Galwegians was definitely the highlight for me.

That was just unreal. From a kind of a family personal perspective, to go out and be able to play with Kate, and to win a big final like that was very special. I’d love to obviously replicate that but obviously she’s involved with 7s, so she’s very rarely released. That was a really, really good feeling. For our family it was so nice for them to see us play together, especially for my dad because he was the one who kind of got into rugby. That was a really special moment for us both.

We had some really solid players, Catherine Martin, Nicole Carroll. It was a really really good team, and we are kind of happy now that we’ve been able to maintain that kind of top five position. Obviously, our ambition is to hopefully crack top four. But I think it is a testament to us that we have been able to have that consistency in the league for the last number of years, and never luckily been too far down the table.

I mean personally, it’s been a great club to join.  I’m used to kind of the smaller club. It just had that kind of small club feeling even though it is in Dublin. A lot of the other Dublin clubs are quite big and I think the family and community vibe in Sutton is something that I love and thrive on. And it just makes everybody a better player at the end of the day when you feel like you’re a part of something special.”

However, ahead of last season, it was a difficult time for the club as with dwindling numbers the thoughts of folding became a real possibility. With a razor thin squad at times, Suttonians battled to a commendable fifth place once the season ended.

A year later they are back looking to go that one step further with healthy numbers on board. Laura Claridge joined from New Zealand this year, along with the Dutch international pair of Isa Prins and Esmee Ligtvoet.

Through the tough times last season Suttonians fought until the end for points and Farrell-McCabe admits that is everything they pride themselves on in Suttonians, as they look to be a team to be reckoned with this season.

“I suppose that kind of just encapsulates everything we kind of pride ourselves on in Suttonians. We might not have the biggest squad. We might not be the largest pack, or we might not be the strongest around the pitch, but what we do pride ourselves on is pure grit and determination. However many numbers we have, we’re always gonna show up for each other and battle it out that way.

We really like to think that we make it difficult for teams to play against us, and we just show pure determination every time we get on that pitch. So that’s something we’ve kind of prided ourselves on over the last number of seasons. That’s the kind of way we wanted to start this year. Obviously, we would have preferred to have a few more wins out of the start of the season. The draw with Ballincollig probably wasn’t the result we wanted, but I suppose weather conditions that day were just something else.

We were happy to come away with a point ultimately. Our ambition is to be top four and kind of do one better than last season. We’ve kind of put ourselves now in a decent enough position to kind of achieve that this  year. Our goal will be before Christmas to remain in top four or five and then kind of build on that after Christmas. It’s a testament to everyone in the club to go from struggling with numbers to being able to field and to be able to field competitively now this season, and to hopefully have a name as a team to be kind of reckoned with and not to be underestimated either.”

Suttonians currently occupy sixth spot in the table and sit just four points outside of the top four after a hard earned win over Galwegians last weekend. For the first time this weekend they will meet Tullow in the All-Ireland League, with the irishrugby+ cameras bringing all the action from Blackgates.

Two teams with a big history of facing the other. Suttonians and Tullow had some big battles in the Leinster League down through the years as the pair fought to get their place in the All Ireland League.

While Tullow sit bottom yet to secure a result, based on the historical nature of these two teams facing the other, Farrell-McCabe admits Suttonians are not underestimating Tullow one bit, despite having confidence coming off the win over Galwegians.

“The weekend was a tough battle. It was kind of back and forth, and we had started well and then they got a couple of tries back on us. We actually went down a score in which, usually when we go down a score, we find it quite hard to get back on top. But the girls really dug in, and we were able to pull it out of the bag there kind of towards the end of the game.

I think there was a few very sore bodies on Sunday morning, it was just so physical. I mean Galwegians are such a physical team and they really really put it up to us. I think we were all just glad of the win and to kinda get a little bit back on track, after obviously the Railway result wasn’t great at all. We’re happy to take the kind of winning momentum into Tullow now this weekend hopefully.

Historically Suttonians and Tullow would have had good battles, all kind of throughout Div 1 and when we were kind of working up through the divisions to try and make it to AIL, Tullow were always one of those teams that we kinda struggled against and had had really good battles with.

So we are absolutely not underestimating the strength of Tullow. We know that they are a big ball carrying team, and they kind of look to really put it up to people physically. By all means we’re taking this game just as seriously as all the rest of the games we’ve had during the season. Definitely no underestimation on our behalf.”