THE SATURDAY PANEL | The folklore of AIL rugby | Johne Murphy, Alison Miller and Hugh Farrelly
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Off the Ball Breakfast. Mad, the wrestling in the 90s was. Like, people cutting their face open, jumping off the top of the cages. Like, sleeper matches, Birdie the Live matches. Like, as a kid, I watched it and thought, like, God, this is all real. But it's watered down now, isn't it? It's nowhere near it. When's the last time you've seen somebody being hit by a chair in wrestling?
Live every weekday morning from 7.30 on your smart speaker. Just ask Alexa to play OTB Sports Radio. The Saturday panel on Off the Ball with Energia. Proud supporters of rugby at every level across Ireland. Think of the possibilities. This is Newstalk. And you're welcome back to Off the Ball Saturday here on Newstalk. John Duggan with you through to five. You can WhatsApp us today 0879 180 180. It's time for this week's Saturday panel. The Saturday panel on Off the Ball this week brought to you by Energia. Experience the best of men's and women's club rugby at the Energia AIL finals. Hashtag think of the possibilities. So tomorrow, the Viva Stadium will host the biggest day of the club rugby year in Ireland, AIL finals day.
You'll Bohemian play Blackrock College in the women's final at 1.30. Then it's Clontar versus St. Mary's in the men's final from four. To look ahead, we're delighted to have in studio the ex-Munster and Leicester back and current NACE coach, Johnny Murphy, and the former Dolphin forward, rugby writer and current assistant editor, the Irish Daily Mail, Hugh Faraday. We'll also be joined very shortly by Alison Miller, ex-Irish international Grand Slam winner. How are we doing, Johnny? And Hugh, how's the form? Great, thanks, John. Yeah, all good. All good. Club rugby, Hugh Farrelly, when you were growing up, what did that mean?
Well, I'm old enough to remember the dawn of the AL, but I remember what preceded it, which was in the 80s, a very old school system of friendlies where clubs had traditional matches against each other, meaningless games, essentially, you know. You had minor competitions like the Leinster Senior League, Munster Senior League, But most of the year was spent with these friendlies. They might be organized on the morning of an international. So say, for example, Sunday as well, we'll come up to play Wanderers before an international and they all go to the game afters, this type of stuff. But it was so amateur. You also had a situation where you might play a team in the north. I remember traveling up to play
in Stonians or someone and you'd make a weekend of it so all the Alicadoos would travel up it was Blazer City and after the match there'd be this big lavish dinner and swapping of ties and all this kind of stuff and it was all very nice all very old school all very traditional and but it lacked focus and they decided in the end of the 90s that they wanted to tighten it up there was a bit of opposition to it I remember and it started off with two divisions and then expanded to four after two years and it changed everything it changed everything I would say the You could probably, Johnny would know this as well, you could probably trace the rise, the explosion in rugby in Ireland. Rugby was a niche sport until the 2000s.
Maybe Brian Driscoll's three tries in Paris might be kicked off, but that came from Munster, popularised in the game, and Munster came from the clubs. If you look through the role of honour of the AIL, It was Munster dominated the 90s until Mary's, who were actually playing the final tomorrow, won it in 2000. And if I can indulge you, I remember, because I used to read everything, and going into the first AIL, what Donegal Callaghan would refer to as the blue media, the Dublin media, were all predicted that Wanderer was going to walk away with it. Wanderer said one, the Leinster League and Cup double, and they had Philip Matthews, they had a host of stars. And Munster clubs were completely written off.
What they hadn't factored in, as you know, John, from playing down there, was a massive chip on the shoulder. Munster clubs felt they weren't getting represented by national selectors, which were seen as a kind of a Leinster Ulster cabal.
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