Roots & All is a project where we pick a few teams that don’t normally make the spotlight week in week out and feature them regularly throughout an entire campaign.
With the Christmas Break, rugby in Naas was a little scarce so not much to report. Our Firsts finished of the year with only their second loss of the season in the final of the Leinster Senior League Shield to Skerries RFC by the narrowest of margins 7-6. Naas could have won that game but on the night Skerries deserved it. Lets hope they can work on the positives from that game and get back to their winning ways in the Ulster Bank All Ireland League.
The AIL for us starts back on the 19th Jan with an away fixture to second from bottom Ards RFC followed by a tough, hopefully still, top of the table clash with Rainey Old Boys at home in Fournaughts on the 26th Jan.
After 7 games played out of the 15 Naas sit in second place on 27 pt with Rainey on top with 32. There’s not much between the top 6 clubs, Rainey are unbeaten on 7 from 7 then Naas and Boyne with 6 wins from 7 followed by 3 more on 5 wins from 7. So hopefully come the end of January Naas RFC will be still in with a shout of promotion.
ULSTER BANK LEAGUE DIVISION 2B
| Pos | Team | Pl | W | D | L | F | A | Diff | TB | LB | Pts |
| 1 | Rainey OB | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 209 | 65 | 144 | 4 | 0 | 32 |
| 2 | Naas | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 211 | 100 | 111 | 2 | 1 | 27 |
| 3 | Boyne | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 156 | 89 | 67 | 2 | 1 | 27 |
| 4 | NUIM Barnhall | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 246 | 91 | 155 | 4 | 2 | 26 |
| 5 | Nenagh Ormond | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 175 | 101 | 74 | 3 | 2 | 25 |
| 6 | Navan RFC | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 134 | 114 | 20 | 2 | 1 | 23 |
| 7 | Armagh | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 166 | 83 | 83 | 3 | 1 | 22 |
| 8 | Skerries | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 126 | 100 | 26 | 0 | 3 | 17 |
| 9 | Suttonians | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 146 | 174 | -28 | 2 | 1 | 15 |
| 10 | Sundays Well | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 135 | 189 | -54 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| 11 | Instonians | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 125 | 188 | -63 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| 12 | Clonakilty | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 132 | 209 | -77 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| 13 | Sligo | 7 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 69 | 166 | -97 | 1 | 0 | 9 |
| 14 | Thomond | 7 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 113 | 161 | -48 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| 15 | Ards | 7 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 77 | 166 | -89 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| 16 | Connemara | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 47 | 271 | -224 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Over the past few years NaasRFC has grown to become one of the biggest clubs in the country with over 650 Youths and Minis 5 adult teams and 2 girls teams which takes a lot of organizing on a week to week basis. Thanks has to go to all the volunteers including the 90+ coaches that give of their time each week to bring the game of Rugby to each of the 650 + kids.
That strong Youths and minis programme is starting to pay off with over 85% of the First Squad that are home grown talent and its not only within the club but outside with a number of Naas players making it to higher grades.
Internationals players Geordan Murphy and Jamie Heaslip,
Leinster players Fionn Carr and most recently Adam Byrne who has move up the ranks as fast as he can move down the wing gaining Leinster U19, “A” and full caps already this season and he is sill only 19 having started in NaasRFC at 14!!!.
But there are many more in the pipe lines of Irish Rugby –
Irish U20 Sam Coghlan-Murray,
Leinster Youths U18s: Mike Russell
Leinster Schools Under 18s Billy Dardis (Terenure Coll) , Oliver Jager (Blackrock Coll), Hugh O'Donnell , Jonathan Phelan (Both Newbridge Coll):
Leinster Under 19s: Adam Byrne, Mark Rushe
Connaught Under 20s Ryan Casey, James Connolly
Lets hope we can add a few more to that list over the next few years
Finally The Naas U12’s entertained the crowds at halftime at the Leinster v Connaught match back on the 29th December. We played Lansdowne RFC in what had to be the fast 8 minutes of my life. Our boys show some great skills and a rock solid defense coming out 1-0 victors. With that added bonus of Adam Byrne getting his first senior cap on the right wing and Fionn Carr on the left it was a good night for Naas RFC. Unfortunately we could only play 15 (10 on the field and 5 subs) of our 73 U12’s, but the rest were there supporting their teammates & Leinster and despite the bitter cold an enjoyable night was had by all.
Keep up to date with Naas RFC weekly progress on twitter @NaasRFC
Happy New Year to All
Click here for the club website
NEXT WEEK ON ROOTS & ALL – we hope to see a new club join the project for the second half of the season, possibly our first Munster representative! Stay tuned…
