Nenagh Ormond are ready for long awaited AIL return

By Thomas Conway

Back in 2014, when Nenagh Ormond coasted through Division 2B with an unbeaten record to earn promotion to the next tier of the All-Ireland League, the club was experiencing a somewhat special infusion of success and positive energy.

Derek Corcoran had been named League Player of the Year, the senior side had also retained the Cyril Fitzgerald Plate, while a wave of underage success was also building force. It was one of those golden years which appeared to herald the dawn of a new era for the club, with future prospects looking exclusively bright.

So, have those bright prospects materialised over the years since? It depends on your interpretation of what constitutes success, but any reasonable judgement should indicate that yes, the club has performed extremely well in an overall sense.

Ormond have held their own in Division 2A, firmly establishing themselves as genuine competitors in the grade, and occasionally challenging for honours at the top end of the table. Granted, there have been blips - some seasons have been better than others, but they have managed squad transitions and personnel changes, while at the same time adapting to the climate of the AIL’s third-tier.

For current Club President Keith Hayes, the future outlook is exclusively positive, as the malaise of Covid begins to lift and sport once again becomes central in many people’s lives. Like any club, central to the life of Nenagh Ormond RFC are its younger members, something which Hayes is eager to emphasise.

“The fact that guys are now getting back and playing games - that’s what it’s all about,” he began.

“But definitely our underage is very, very solid. And that’s a compliment to our youth officers, Louis Manley and Ian Foley, as well as all the volunteers who give up their time to coach our teams. Ultimately, if your underage structure is there, if you have a good base, the club will always be in good shape.”

Along with various other contact sports, rugby has been placed under the microscope in recent years, as damning findings have emerged in relation to the effects of sustained concussions and other impact-induced physical injuries. Parents are beginning to have reservations about whether to allow their children to engage in such activities, but in Nenagh Ormond, the physical and mental welfare of underage players is paramount. Well-organised and coherent underage structures ensure high-standards of player development, with an infusion of youth benefiting the senior team on an annual basis.

“I’d say we would be the envy of a lot of senior clubs out there” Hayes added.

“Now, to be fair, I’d say that a lot of senior clubs which are rural, they tend to be a little bit stronger than the more traditional senior clubs in terms of underage structures. We get two or three guys into the senior side, from our underage teams, every season, and that helps to keep us where we are.”

Raise the dial

Ormond firmly believe that they have the ability and the squad-depth to raise the dial and take their performances up a notch this season. When it comes to setting targets however, Head Coach Mike Kennedy takes a more all-round, philosophical approach, placing the emphasis on player and squad development, as opposed to specific, fixed objectives such as finishing in a particular position or achieving promotion at all costs.

Sceptics might suggest that such an approach is essentially just a convenient way of avoiding a difficult question, but Kennedy is one-hundred per-cent genuine in his answer. The Nenagh man has an astute coaching mind. He feels that setting specific targets can limit a team from achieving its true potential, hence his focus on overall development.

“I’m always reluctant to set targets for a team in terms of a set position in the table, because I think that can almost limit a team or a player’s potential,” he explained.

“Our focus, or certainly the way I like to approach coaching, is on developing players, making them better players and actually allowing them to fulfil their potential. So that really is the focus this season - I try to look beyond league position or winning certain games, beating certain teams. Our focus is on developing ourselves and being the best team that we can be.”

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 forced the abandonment of the 2019/20 AIL season, leading to an eighteen-month hiatus in which little club rugby action took place, bar a handful of games in the short-lived Community Series last September.

Because of that gap, it makes it difficult to extrapolate anything to the upcoming season in terms of form and squad-depth. Still, when the league was eventually cut short, MU Barnhall were charging towards Division 2A honours, with Cashel in close pursuit. Nenagh Ormond were hovering precariously near the bottom of the table, positioned ninth, with Dolphin the only club behind them.

That was then, this is now, and Ormond have a perfect opportunity to literally turn the tables on the 2020 league leaders. They welcome Maynooth University Barnhall to New Ormond Park for their Division 2A opener next Saturday.

It should be an intriguing battle, as the visiting side seek to build on their 2018/19 promotion from 2B by jumping up another tier this season. Kennedy and his coaching team have done everything they can to ensure that Nenagh are in prime condition for that clash, implementing an extensive pre-season training programme in order to ease the squad back into game-mode.

“A lot of our early pre-season training would have been based on aerobic, non-contact work - with the physical stuff coming after that,” Kennedy said.

“We wanted to make sure that players were physically prepared for playing rugby, after such a long time without proper match-play. Avoiding injury is always going to be important, but particularly so at this time, when players haven’t been playing as regularly.”

Kennedy isn’t a man laser-focused on success. He believes his squad have the capability to achieve of course, but beyond that, he cares deeply about his players, approaching the senior set-up with a longer-term vision.

This is a relatively young Ormond team, bubbling with potential and youthful swagger. This season’s Division 2A will challenge them in all sorts of ways, but you get the sense that, after being deprived of competitive rugby for such a long, Ormond are ready to embrace that challenge.