‘We’re Treating Inst Like A 1A Club’ – Quinn On Lansdowne’s Bateman Cup Final Build-Up

Winning the Energia Bateman Cup has been on the minds of Lansdowne since the start of this season, and you can understand why when you look at their enviable history with the competition as outright champions on six occasions.

Saturday’s title decider sees them come up against current Division 2A leaders Instonians, with Declan Fassbender’s charges having home advantage on the back pitch at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 2.30pm – live on irishrugby+).

When it comes to getting over the line in the Bateman Cup, Lansdowne have won their last five finals, including their last appearance against Young Munster in 2022. They also shared the title with Cork Constitution in 2020, as they were joint winners due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Lifting the Bank of Ireland Leinster Senior Cup last season for the 29th time, they had a thrilling 45-44 extra-time win over Terenure College in the final. Cillian Redmond’s late try was converted by Charlie Tector to decide the outcome.

Since then qualifying for another Bateman Cup final has been a big aim, and with a clinical semi-final showing against Sligo back in late November, they are beginning the New Year hoping to lift more national silverware.

Speaking to IrishRugby.ie ahead of the game against Instonians, Lansdowne’s director of rugby Michael Quinn Jr believes that when a trophy is up for grab they have to make the most of the opportunity.

“It’s something that, obviously, we take very seriously to qualify for it, and having to win the Leinster Senior Cup from the year before to qualify for the Bateman,” he explained.

“The Bateman is always a trophy that Lansdowne strives to win every single season. Like we do with every trophy I suppose, or any competition we’re in, particularly the Bateman with our history with the competition.

“The Leinster Senior Cup final when we beat Terenure, it was a great game for us because it was nip and tuck. We were in the lead, they were in the lead. We were in the lead, and then they got a kind of a last minute thing. And then we got a very, very last minute thing.

“To win that and go undefeated was great, and it set us up for the AIL to have a good run in the AIL last season, but also obviously qualified us for the Bateman.

“It is a minefield because there’s so many strong teams in Leinster in 1A and in 1B that no matter who’s in your group, if you’re not on it on the given day, you’re going to lose.”

He added: “You’re not able to use it as a pre-season because if you use it as a pre-season, you’re coming away with a loss and then that damages your hopes of winning the Leinster Senior Cup and then qualifying for the Bateman.

“When you have a chance to win silverware, whether it’s the Bateman, the AIL or the Leinster Senior Cup, you have to take it. When we had identified our goals for this coming season, winning the Bateman was at the top of that.

“It’s something we identified at the start of the season that we wanted to, obviously, get our semi-final win against Sligo, which was emphatic on the scoreboard.

“A tough game for the majority before we pulled away towards the end. But we are delighted to be in the final this weekend, and we’re delighted to have the opportunity to play against Instonians.”

Notably, it is a repeat of the 1927 final, the last time Instonians featured in a Bateman Cup decider, and indeed just one of two occasions that Lansdowne have tasted defeat in a final in the competition’s history. Inst won 16-8 that day.

The current Inst squad, led by Clem Boyd and Paul Pritchard, are on storied run coming up the junior ranks just a couple of seasons ago and while Lansdowne have not faced them in that time, they have certainly studied their final opponents closely.

Quinn rates the Belfast side highly, especially as they overcame top flight teams Ballynahinch and City of Armagh on the way to winning the Bank of Ireland Ulster Senior Cup last season, and also claimed the scalp of Garryowen in their Bateman Cup semi-final in November.

“We know about them just purely because of this immense success they’ve had in such a short period of time. Instonians, traditionally, when the AIL started back in the 1990s, they would have been one of the top teams in the country and certainly one of the top teams in the north continuously.

“Recently in the last five or six years, they have certainly put together a very strong club, like the club in terms of what they always were.

“In terms of the league they’re in, they have a playing group, coaching group, and I suppose it’s a support base that they have behind them, which would probably lend to them not being a Division 2A club.

“So, we’d be looking at them as they have the playing personnel and the coaching personnel that they’re a 1A club, and that’s how we’re treating them.

“We understand how strong they are across the board, we’re fully expecting them to be in Division 1B next season, and then given their trajectory, probably will be a 1A club in the very, very near future.

If they’re able to go and they are able to beat Garryowen, they’re able to beat Ballynahinch and City of Armagh in particular, they’re 1A clubs and they’re good 1A clubs.

“Going to Armagh or Armagh coming to you, City of Armagh in particular are a very, very strong rugby club. They’re very well organised, they have a great ground up there in Armagh. Very, very difficult place to go to.

“So, whenever you’re playing City of Armagh, you have to be on your game because they’ve got a very, very strong group and a very good coaching ticket again. So, the fact that Instonians are in the final speaks volumes about the quality that they have.”

Lansdowne Football Club has been a home away from home for Quinn since he was a child. The eldest son of Lansdowne legend Michael Quinn, rugby has been a very important part of his life and at the centre of it all was Lansdowne.

Being around the greats of the game fueled the desire for Quinn to fall in love with the sport, ad he now holds a very important role within the club.

Asked about his childhood and being influenced by his father, who won 10 caps for Ireland as an out-half, and other notable players of that time, he reflected on those memories fondly.

“Growing up in the house, it was all about rugby, it was great. Myself and my brother, we were sent to St. Mary’s Rathmines because of where we lived. We were so close to the school. We grew up in Rathmines, and we were very lucky to go to St. Mary’s.

“The people we met through Dad, we were very lucky, with all of his pals, guys like Johnny Moloney, Ollie Campbell. I could be name-dropping here all day.

“But, even with the Lansdowne team that he played in, like any given team in the 1970s and 1980s, there would be five or six internationals there whether they were present or past, but you’re looking at internationals, five or six, seven guys in the team. They just had phenomenal success during that period.

“Just hanging about with you these guys when you are a young fella, hearing the stories and they were just talking about rugby, getting to hang out with these legends of Irish rugby like Moss Keane, Johnny Moloney, Donal Canniffe, and all these great guys.

“It was just great growing up in that environment, with just a lot of cool Irish legends, and Lansdowne legends as well. That’s what kind of drove us to just to be heavily involved in it, having a love for Lansdowne from a very early age because all our friends were in the club.

“We’d be down there watching all the matches, just messing around with the other kids and we just kind of got a bit of a grá for the place, and it’s just great because now all of my pals have kids, and they’re all coming through the minis.

“We have a great minis programme at Lansdowne, and it’s great – it’s a great atmosphere, and it’s great to know all of my pals now with their kids going down, the boys and the girls down there, and having a bit of fun.”

Having played for the club as a youngster, he is now in his second full season in the director of rugby role. He returned home three years ago, following a decade away in America, and had a prior stint as Lansdowne’s chairman of rugby before moving Stateside.

Lansdowne undoubtedly has a rich pedigree as an Energia All-Ireland League top flight club, bringing through a number of players to proudly wear the club colours and also those of Leinster, Ireland, and the British & Irish Lions.

Quinn knows the task at hand is to keep Lansdowne challenging at the highest level of the club game both provincially and nationally, whilst ensuring that the underage talent coming through the club continues to flourish.

“There was always that thing in the back of my head that, ‘Janey mack, you know you’ve got this role within a very successful club, and that it has a great history and has provided a huge amount of professional and international rugby players to Ireland and all this really good stuff’.

“It’s always kind of in the back of your mind that you want to make sure that Lansdowne continues to be successful, and anything we can do in order to make that happen, we’re going to do.

“It really does come down to making sure that we’re getting the best young players through the club.”

With home advantage this weekend as they had for their semi-final encounter with Sligo, Lansdowne will be looking to make that count on Saturday afternoon in order to further enhance their reputation in the Bateman Cup.

Only twice this season have they tasted defeat at home in the All-Ireland League, the second of which was their most recent match against table toppers St. Mary’s College in round 9 last month.

Fassbender’s men have had some mixed results during the 2024/25 campaign to date, and they currently occupy seventh place in the Division 1A table. They have eight points to make up on Ballynahinch in fourth spot.

Quinn reckons he has rarely seen as high a standard of play in the top flight as this year, and knowing that they will not be in next season’s Bateman Cup after losing their Leinster Senior Cup crown to Clontarf, Lansdowne will certainly be all out for victory.

“From what we’ve seen in the AIL, the quality this season is probably the highest it’s been for quite some time,” he insisted. “Any team can beat any team on any given day.

“We’ve beaten ‘Tarf and Con, and we’ve lost to maybe teams that you wouldn’t have considered being as strong as ‘Tarf and Con.

“From a Lansdowne perspective, I suppose that if we are locked in and we kind of get our game-plan going, we’re a very, very difficult team to beat. But in saying that, every other team in the AIL is exactly the same.

“Garryowen have had one win this season. That was against us in the first game. We arrived down at Dooradoyle, and they were up from 1B and they were bloody good that day. They were bloody good that day, but they haven’t had a win since.

I know that we’re in a bit of a tricky spot this season, but none of the games we played in, other than Young Munster, have been incredibly one-sided.

“It’s always been kind of a nip-and-tuck in all the losses we’ve had, except, like I said for Young Munster where they turned up and were exceptional on the day and we were not. So we’re fully focused.

“Ever since the recent Mary’s game, it’s just been Bateman, Bateman, Bateman. There’s an added fire and an added desire because you can’t go and get it again next year. We’ve got to perform on the day and we’ve got to win against a very, very good Instonians team.”