Seapoint Put Junior Cup Ambitions On The Line Against ‘Tough’ Tullow Side

Beaten by Bective Rangers in last season’s semi-finals, it was their best finish in the All-Ireland Junior Cup since 2007, as in 2010 they gained promotion to the All-Ireland League. They held onto their senior status until being relegated in 2019.

Prior to last year, Seapoint’s Junior Cup campaigns in 2021/22 and 2022-23 ended with defeats in the opening round. They have a real fondness for the competition as their title win was a real catalyst for them to go on and achieve promotion to the All-Ireland League.

Speaking to IrishRugby.ie, Director of Rugby Sean Burke spoke of that win in 2007 and how the club wants to win as much as they can, with the Junior Cup and Leinster League success on their minds to once again create that springboard effect.

“When we won it the last time in 2007, three years later in 2010, we got our AIL status, went up to senior level. There’s a memory that that was the catalyst, that 2007 win was the catalyst to push us forward into our AIL success. So I think the feeling again is we wanna win as much as we can. We played Bective last week in a doubleheader, which was Leinster League Division 1A and the Spencer Cup semi-final. And Bective beat us 13-3 in another close encounter.

So that leaves us out of the Spencer Cup, not as if it wasn’t important enough already, the AIL Junior Cup becomes even more important now for us. And it’s gonna be tough, this will be the sixth match in six weeks.

So everybody’s gonna be feeling the pinch. There’s a lot of attrition. It’s how the squads manage themselves, and how everyone comes out of that. It’ll be good to get a break after it. It’s gonna be very exciting, our goal for the season is to win the AIL Junior Cup, then win the league, and then who knows?. But we need to be beating the best of the best at this level to kind of achieve what we want to achieve.”

Seapoint came through some tough battles with City of Derry, Richmond and Monivea, the three other Junior League winners from each province, in some tough round robin play-offs back in 2010.

Having to travel to Derry and Galway were tough journeys to make, but Point came out on top to earn their senior status. Status they held until losing a relegation play-off to Clonmel at a similar point in 2019.

With a very impressive underage structure in place over the years, Seapoint are reaping the rewards with plenty of those players who first wore the club colours at the age of six or seven, now putting on the senior jersey this weekend.

Relegation was tough at the time admits Burke, however with how successful the club have been at underage along with the family bond within the club, Burke believes the club is in a great place at the moment.

“It was difficult at the time to be relegated, then Covid hit. So that had an impact on play everywhere. And we have always set our goals on getting back to AIL status in the last couple of years.

I think two years ago, actually in the league, coming up to Christmas, we were bottom of the league and really, really struggling. So we made a few changes, and then ended up finishing quite well in fourth.. So we are now at a place where we were kind of struggling three years ago, to last year finishing second in the league. And then this year, we’re lying third at the moment, so it’s very, very competitive.

But we feel confident there, and we feel, in terms of the league, that’s where we set our goal this year. We want to win that. And then in whatever round robin after that, we’ll hope for the best, and we’ll prepare for the best.

With regards to the club growing and to getting that AIL status, we probably have one of the biggest mini and youth sections in the country. 600 players playing, all the way from U7’s up to U18. And a lot of these players now, we have a very young team in our first and second squad, who would have come up through those ranks.

I think there was a picture with the U7’s coach and some of the senior team today, pictures of those players when they were six and seven playing in the under U7’s. They surfaced recently. So with that amount of players coming through from the junior ranks, and now we’ve got a good strong U20’s. This year, we’ve got 36 on the panel of our under 20’s.

Whereas back probably in 2018, we were struggling with U20’s. And there’s a real kind of family atmosphere about it. And we think we’re in a good position, it’s not this year, it’ll be next year, but certainly, our goal is to win the league this year, as I said. And a lot of that is driven by our success in the mini and youth section and at U20 level and bringing players along.”

Previous to his current role within the club, Burke was on the field during the mid nineties when Seapoint recorded success in Division 2 of the Leinster League, along with picking up a Spencer Cup.

However once the time came to hang up the boots, he slowly started to disappear from the club. That was until son Felix started to pick up rugby and Burke returned in a coaching role at U8 level until U13.

Felix would depart Seapoint as he now goes to Blackrock College where as a second year he lines out at 10 for the JCT team. Once Felix left he hung up the coaching cap, only to return as first Assistant Director of Rugby last year and Director of Rugby this year. A role that Burke says he enjoys a lot.

“I played on the senior 15 back in the mid nineties. In 1995 we won Leinster League Division 2. That put us up to Leinster League 1. We also won a Spencer Cup back then. But like everything else after time, when you stop playing, you disappear. My route back was then through my young fella, who started playing two years in U7’s and then when they get to U8’s, there’s a different coach.

So I took over as head coach for the U8’s and managed that team right to U13’s. And I decided I had done it for long enough. I’ve done it for seven or eight years, and I thought I’d give someone else a try at it.

And my fella was moving off to a rugby school as well, so I didn’t have the same level of interest. So I hung up my coaching cap as it were, and I thought I could sneak out the back door, but I got cornered into coming back in, doing Assistant Director of Rugby last year and Director of Rugby this year. And I’m delighted I did, having been in the senior part of the club then in the mini and youth section.

In mini and youth, I was the mini and youth coordinator then as well for about three years. So a busy time, and I just felt to get to know the club fully again. It’ll be great to get involved with the seniors. So I wasn’t fully expecting to end up where I did, but it’s a great place to be at the moment, we’re in a good place. I’m enjoying it a lot.”

Being such a strong community based club, the call to action has already gone out from Seapoint to get their supporters down to cheer on their seniors this weekend, in a crunch quarter final clash with Tullow.

As mentioned these two have a strong history, not only this season but also over the past number of years fighting it out in Division 1A of the Leinster League. This season alone, the pair have met twice since August. Seapoint won well in the Colm O’Shea Cup, before two weeks ago they renewed acquaintances in the league, a game that went down to the wire.

Burke believes it will be another tough battle with Tullow this Saturday, but that the group are all out to win this game on Saturday, and get over the line this weekend and make it back to the semi-final stage of the competition once again.

“It’s a very exciting weekend. It’s a level that we wanna be at. It’s only been two weeks since we played them in the league. We also played them at the start of the year in the Colm O’Shea Cup. We beat them, that was at the end of August, 36-5 was the score.

The game two weeks ago, again, was backwards and forwards all the way. In fact, we chased that game for most of the time. We just got back to 17-17 just before halftime, and then they just got a converted try just on halftime. So they went ahead 24-17. And it was only late in the game that we got away from them again, and then we closed it out in the end, with the final score 38-34.

A very close encounter, and a tough game, a tough kind of open game. So we were very pleased to get away from that, but we’re under no illusion as to how tough and how strong Tullow will be this coming Saturday.

We’re a community club. We have our mini and youth section.  We also have our Seaport Dragons here at 35 strong panel now at this point with 6 coaches. They started in 2012. That’s an incredible success. We’re very successful with girls rugby.

We’re fielding teams all the way up to U18. And so we will be putting out the war cry to get everybody down again this weekend, and everybody will be down wearing their hats and their scarves, and I think we all realise the importance of it. It’s great that we have such a big area around us, a catchment area around us and we get great support.

Tullow we’re well used to seeing them now at this point. Forgetting the Colm O’Shea Cup at the start of the season, there’s only been a maximum of seven points between us at the end of a game, in the last three competitive matches. So we’ll be rallying the troops and getting everyone around to support as best they can and cheer on the lads in black, blue, and green.

It means an awful lot to us. I spoke last Saturday to the two coaches, Adam Philpott and Connor Montayne after our close run in with Bective. And I said, how are we feeling about next week?. And talked about injuries, talked about everything else. We’ve played six matches, so there’s gonna be a bit of attrition, but we’ve got a good depth in our squad. I think 35 players have played for firsts so far this season.

The two coaches were Gung ho. We are all out to win this match on Saturday against Tullow. And the whole club will be behind it, the social media stuff is already starting. We might even get a parade of honour with some of the younger guys to clap the team on. So it’s huge.

Any piece of silverware is hard to come by in rugby. So we are really, really excited about it, and we would love to make the semi-final. But I know Tullow will have the same sort of goals, and they’ll be feeling you know, they came so close to us on the last day that it will be a tough, tough encounter.”