Leinster rivalry reaches new peak

While the rivalry between Lansdowne and St Mary's College in the context of Irish rugby history is of comparatively recent vintage - their first match in the Leinster Senior Cup for instance did not take place until 1967 - they have, subsequently, produced some great matches when they have met in the Leinster Cup and Leinster League and, more recently in the All-Ireland League. Both clubs have given an immense amount to Leinster and Irish rugby.

Whatever about their matches through the years, their meeting at Lansdowne Road tomorrow in the final of the AIB All-Ireland League has a historical factor central to it. And while the Leinster Senior Cup and Leinster League have been at stake in the past when the clubs have met, the match tomorrow is of greater significance than any previous meeting between the clubs.

By reaching the final of the AIB League the two clubs have recorded a notable first - they are the first Leinster clubs to reach this stage of the competition since it was decided three years ago that the league would be decided in a knockout series between the top four finishers. The previous finals have been all-Munster affairs, just as the league title has been a Munster preserve since it was inaugurated a decade ago.

The winners tomorrow will thus be the firs t Leinster club to take the title, and that gives the final an added dimension. Ironically, should Lansdowne win it will yet again be a Munsterman who will receive the trophy as Lansdowne are led by David O'Mahony, the former UCC and Cork Constitution scrumhalf who was capped against Italy in 1995 in Treviso. He was also a member of the Munster team which won the interprovincial championship that season. O'Mahony's half-back partner Barry Everitt, another former Munster interprovincial, has played in an AIB League final before as he was a member of the Garryowen side which lost the final two years ago to Shannon.

It may seem strange that it was not until 1967 that Lansdowne and St Mary's met in a competitive senior fixture. That was a first-round Leinster Senior Cup match which ended in a draw. Lansdowne won the replay.

But while the Lansdowne club has been on the scene since 1872, before the formation of the first administrative body for the game in this country two years later, St Mary's was founded in 1900-01 and will celebrate their centenary next season. It would certainly be nice for the club to go into the centenary celebrations as All-Ireland League champions.

Originally known as Old St Mary's, the club changed its name to St Mary's College and won the Leinster Junior Cup in 1905, again in 1907 and 1908 and for a fourth time in 1911. The success at junior level prompted the club to go senior, but unfortunately it ceased to exist in 1916 when the college was closed.

St Mary's College was never a closed club, but the closure of the college brought about the closure of the club. The college reopened in 1926 and the St Mary's club was reformed in 1932, went senior in the early 1940s and then, in 1958 under the inspirational captaincy of Joe Fanagan, won the Leinster Senior Cup.

This match will carry the greatest prize there has yet been at stake, not alone in the ongoing rivalry between the clubs, but in Irish club rugby

It was won again in 1969 and three times in the 1970s, when St Mary's had a superb team. In fact, in 1975, St Mary's won an All-Ireland title. That was the special competition arranged by the Munster Branch to mark the IRFU centenary. It was contested by the four provincial cup winners on the same lines as the old Bateman Cup, which had existed in the 1920s and 1930s but ceased during World War Two and was never subsequently revived.

Lansdowne can lay just claims to being amongst the most successful clubs in the country, with a splendid record of achievement in the Leinster Senior Cup. They first won it as long ago as 1891 and in all on 24 occasions. Lansdowne won the Bateman Cup on four occasions including the inaugural competition in 1922 and then a remarkable three times in a row between 1929 and 1931. That Lansdowne team was surely among the best club sides ever to grace the scene. They won the Leinster Cup five times in a row between 1927 and 1931 and again in 1933.

The teams of that golden era included such as Ernie Crawford, Eugene Davy, Mick Dunne, Jack Arigho, Ned Lightfoot, Mebs Bardon, the Pike brothers, Theo and Victor, Morgan Crowe, Aidan Baily and Ham Lambert, a great all-round sportsman who is still hale and hearty and still immersed in the game.

In the All-Ireland League, while Lansdowne finished runners-up to Shannon in 1997, St Mary's, beaten semi-finalists for the last two seasons, have never managed a second-place finish. In 1993, a draw would have sufficed to win the title, when they lost to Young Munster. In fact, Cork Constitution, who the same afternoon beat Ballymena, finished second.

The balance is very much in Lansdowne's favour in AIL matches between the clubs, and earlier this season Lansdowne won when the clubs met at Lansdowne Road.

There has been only one meeting between the clubs in a Leinster Senior Cup final and that was in 1987 when St Mary's won. The clubs met in the inaugural Leinster Senior League final in 1971 when an injury-time penalty gave St Mary's a 6-4 win. Then in 1988, after the clubs finished level on points in the league, Lansdowne won the play-off 15-9.

But the match tomorrow will carry the greatest prize there has yet been at stake, not alone in the ongoing rivalry between the clubs, but in Irish club rugby in the context of prestige and in monetary terms.

Tomorrow evening one will be at the pinnacle of the club game in this country and become the first Leinster club to win the AIB All-Ireland League title. It should be a match that reflects the importance of the occasion.