Old friends ready to battle for Clontarf

Gerry Thornley traces the career paths of Warren O'Kelly and DaveMoore ahead of today's showdown with Ballymena at Lansdowne Road

Playing against Jonah Lomu and Jeff Wilson is one thing, Ballymena quite another. The careers of Warren O'Kelly and Dave Moore seem to have come full circle since they were Irish schoolboys in arms back in 1992 against the baby Blacks, but the chance to become champions of Ireland with Clontarf even makes the game's most gargantuan figure shrink by comparison. This is bigger.

Losing 23-21 to the New Zealand Schools through a controversial Wilson penalty deep into injury time still rankles with them, as no doubt it does with all on that Irish schools tour, though O'Kelly still has a little piece of history from it all to himself. By scoring the tourists' first try in their opening match against Southlands, he was the first "Irish" representative player to score a five-point try.

Charting the subsequent senior careers of these two Clontarf stalwarts is also a measure of the steep but steady climb over the last eight seasons at Castle Avenue. Their story might also reasonably serve as an inspiration to a host of other clubs.

O'Kelly, a local boy made good who played with Clontarf's main feeder school, St Paul's College, has blue and red blood coursing through his veins. He was six when he started playing mini-rugby with Clontarf, and progressed through to the captaincy of the under-18s, playing for the firsts in the same season, when they were relegated to Division Three. After a season in the lowest rung of the AIL, O'Kelly defected to Lansdowne for three seasons, before returning to Castle Avenue for good six years ago.

Then a member of the Leinster squad, O'Kelly describes the sojourn at Lansdowne as "a career move" which he had to make at the time, though he missed Clontarf.

"It's always home to me. I didn't particularly like the scene in Lansdowne even though I stayed there for three years. But Clontarf was always my home club."

Moore, then nearing 21, joined Clontarf the year that Moore departed to Lansdowne. Though a Blackrock boy, his choice of Castle Avenue was in some part down to his friendship from school days with O'Kelly.

"I was a 'Rock boy through and through, the old man was a big-time 'Rock man as well, but I wasn't happy in the club. I'd played two summers in New Zealand as well and I wanted a change. So when the club came to me they guaranteed me more first-team exposure.

"At that time Eddie O'Sullivan was coaching 'Rock and they had a very strong side. They had Dean Oswald and Johnny McGovern playing in the back row and I didn't have a hope of getting on. But I was ambitious, I wanted first-team rugby so I decided it was a good move for me at the time."

This despite Clontarf then having a "mediocre" year in Division Three in his first year there. But two promotions under Brent Pope in the next three seasons established Clontarf as a Division One side, by which time O'Kelly had made his return.

For O'Kelly, now captain again, the contrast with the old days, when they'd struggle to break into a sweat in training sessions, is scarcely credible.

"Obviously Popey was the first major coach at Clontarf - he got us up into Division One. Then we'd Grizz Wyllie there, who was a hard coach. It was basically "the highway or my way" with him, and then when Phil (Werahiko) came it totally changed around. He's done a great job and brought the best out of all of us."

O'Kelly and Moore point out that the playing panel hasn't changed that much under Werahiko - the sign of a good coach. Instead, they say, he has instilled self-belief, organisation, and defensive and playing structures which play to the players' strengths.

All Clontarf ever needed was a vibrant first team, for with virtually the whole of the northside of Dublin to themselves, the club has always had a strong social identity. Saturday nights there, a casualty of the professional era in many other Dublin clubs, are still buzzing. Clontarf are something of a throwback to the AIL's halcyon days.

Coming to the club as a self-confessed "outsider", Moore highlights the difference between Castle Avenue and other clubs such as Blackrock.

"They could be empty by 5.30 or 6.00 on match day. Here, you hardly want to leave the club. It's a great social club. We always enjoyed our rugby over the years but we never took it as seriously as we do now. But Phil gave us the confidence. We had the talent there, but we never showed it."

"Basically it's a parish club," adds O'Kelly. "We all love going down there to train, and play, and socialise in the club.

"When the game's over we'll stay because the craic is good and there's always people around having fun together, whereas in some other clubs they play their game and they're just gone.

"There's no team feeling. We're all good pals and maybe we play that bit extra for each other. Where other clubs might have 15 better players we might be a better team, put the extra tackle in when it counts for each other because we have that team feeling."

Trawling through the lower divisions and clinging on to their Division One status despite a couple of hair-raising relegation scraps makes these days all the more enjoyable. O'Kelly recalls a Division Three game of mid-table anonymity away to Highfield.

"It finished in a 3-3 draw," says O'Kelly, laughing at the memory of it. "There were a good few fights in it, it was lashing rain, full of muck and a 3-3 draw. What can you say? Some of our old faithful were still around, who'd played with the club for years, like Mickey Fitz (Fitzsimons), Rory Matthews, Robbie Foley, Jim Meates, but it wasn't one of the best games I'd ever played in, to say the least."

The way Moore recalls them, the relegation scraps provided highs and lows, such as the two-legged aggregate win over UCD two seasons ago and the last day escape at the expense of Blackrock 12 months before, particularly in the way the club's faithful rallied around the cause.

"I can still remember these massive crowds in the club, and we were fighting a relegation battle. You'd see a lot of supporters who may or may not have been to games for a while before that. But those two relegation scraps were heart-wrenching times."

Blackrock actually conducted a lap of honour after beating Ballymena on the last day, thinking they'd done enough, but Clontarf scored three late tries in their win over Terenure to survive. Rumours that a wreath was cheekily sent over from the northside to Blackrock were unproven.

Today, though, is a different type of pressure.

"It's huge," says O'Kelly. "It's the biggest game that any of us have ever been involved in because it's the highest you can get at club level. For the club, for all its members, for the players, for the whole parish, it's huge.

"Everyone has been backing us, with signs up in the shops and the pubs, and there's a huge buzz around. This is the biggest game we'll ever play at club level. This is our big day out. It's great to be in this position but we really have to go one step further on the day."

Additional pressure might come with the baggage of being pace-setters for much of the season, finishing top of Division One in the regular campaign, and being saddled with the tag of favourites - albeit marginally. Moore admits Clontarf are happier when underdogs.

"It's hard to hide the fact that we've done well all season. But we're expecting a tough game and Ballymena aren't going to expect an easy one against us. As Warren says, it's a huge game, especially for the supporters who've supported us week-in and week-out, throughout the years."

Bigger than Lomu, Wilson and the baby Blacks?

"Ah yeah, it would be," says Moore. "It's massive for all of us. There haven't been any bigger."