From time to time, a game of the day is indisputably significant, and one such game is set to occur this upcoming Saturday. This crucial match falls within the penultimate round of the Energia All-Ireland League’s complete 25-match set. It’s an extraordinary top-tier meeting, coinciding with a repetition of the previous two finals featuring the front-runners of Division 1A.
Two years ago, former champions Clontarf led the field. Now, they are heading towards Lakelands Park intending to challenge Terenure, who trails them by only two points. The finale confrontation two seasons back had Clontarf emerging as winners, only for Terenure to retort with a 50-24 triumph in last year’s championship decider held at Aviva Stadium. The win, witnessed by a crowd of 8,642 attendees, was Terenure’s first AIL championship. The stakes remain high in an encounter that is now being hailed as the “new classico”, although both these community clubs have secured their semi-finals spots.
Maintaining the tournament’s suspense, Terenure, despite their lauded triumph over Constitution in last week’s match at Temple Hill, are still followed closely by the Cork club – merely a single point away. The Cork team will play with the fifth-positioned Ballynahinch on the upcoming Saturday.
For the climactic round in the following week, Clontarf will be hosting a match against the current underdogs, Trinity, while Terenure and Con are travelling north to face Ballynahinch and City of Armagh. One may predict one or more twists are yet to unfold. However, the victorious team in the next Saturday’s battlefield – Lakelands Park, is poised to enjoy a highly sought-after home semi-final. The defeated team might have to bear the burden of a potentially long trip to Cork for the semi-finals.
Alan Bennie, the veteran scrumhalf from Terenure, spoke about the thrilling rematch of the previous two finals, “It’s always a tough battle anytime we face off against each other,” he says. Reflecting on a match that took place in the earlier part of the season, the victorious Clontarf avenged their previous year’s loss, says Bennie, in reference to Clontarf’s 26-16 triumph over Terenure at Castle Avenue last October.
The upcoming match is a showdown between the top two teams, both of which have been standout performers in the All-Ireland League over recent seasons. This encounter, likened to a battle between titans, is exciting given the significant stakes at this late stage in the season. To top it all, playing in front of an audience of thousands at Lakelands, in their local community, adds to the thrill for the penultimate game of the standard season.
In attendance will be Terenure’s 1B team who were the 2015 champions, along with the school’s Senior Cup and Junior Cup crews. This match also serves as Terenure’s annual charity event held in support of Childline by ISPCC and the Children’s Health Foundation, an initiative motivated by their prop Adam Tuite, who became involved in charity work after his sister Claire’s unfortunate demise in 2017 after a three-year stay at CHI at Crumlin.
The “Freezebury Challenge” was Tuite’s choice of annual charity fundraiser, which involved swimming in the chilly rivers, lakes, and seas around Ireland every day in February, starting from a minimum of one minute on the first day and extending to 28 minutes on the last. Over the course of three years, Tuite’s efforts, alongside Bennie and a few team-mates, managed to raise €60,000 through these initiatives.
Continuing this charitable tradition, a charity match was set up when Terenure squared off against Lansdowne in their last season. The match included auctioning off one-off replica white jerseys which Terenure wore during the match against Lansdowne, the jerseys featuring the names of the charities along each sleeve, raising a sum of €10,000. The same jerseys will be auctioned again this Saturday, at the same time as other fundraising activities such as collection buckets on site, the Six Nations trophy on display, and an online collection scheme for those who can’t be physically present at Lakelands Park.
However, barring a compelling reason, you wouldn’t want to miss it.