A day at Old Belvedere showed what club rugby can be

Last Saturday, Leo Cullen and Leinster shone a light on the All-Ireland League more brightly than has been the case for many years. Releasing 30 contracted players, a dozen from the senior squad and 18 from the academy, reflected well on both Leinster and the club game, and worked on so many levels.

On the Aviva back pitch, Tadhg Furlong, Rónan Kelleher and Dan Sheehan were among the crowd as the latter’s brother Bobby led a Lansdowne team featuring six of the Leinster contingent to a 37-21 comeback win over a Clontarf side with five of theirs.

Todd Lawlor, surely an international of the future, tore it up as he had done on the main pitch when Lansdowne inflicted the Division 1A leaders Old Belvedere with their only defeat so far.

Not far away in Ollie Campbell Park, Old Belvedere only had Alex Mullan in action, a Leinster debutant in their 50-5 win over Connacht in Galway a week beforehand in their team, as Josh Ericson is sidelined until January.

But Terenure sprinkled the game with some stardust in the Leinster quartet of Ben Blaney, Oliver Coffey, Caspar Gabriel and Joshua Kenny in a lively and fluctuating 20-all draw. That top-of-the-table Division 1A clash was the centrepiece of a six-match card that brought to mind how they do things in Australia and New Zealand clubs.

Belvo, like so many Dublin clubs, is thriving. The clubhouse has been renovated over the last 10 years and there’s been player ownership of the rebuilt gym. A state-of-the-art L-shaped indoor facility with a reception area, three padel courts and a squash court at an estimated cost of €2 million-plus that opened in the summer.

Rather incongruously, the padel courts were still in use at 10pm while the pints were flowing and the DJ was spinning tunes in the main bar. Along the corridor is a room commemorating another favourite son, Tony O’Reilly, which is to be finished.

But the walls are decorated with framed jerseys and photographs celebrating O’Reilly’s remarkable career and life, including one of Francois Pienaar and Nelson Mandela after the 1995 World Cup final. Ollie Campbell explains that O’Reilly sat beside Mandela during that final.

Proceedings began at 11am with an under-14s girls’ game between the Sharks, an amalgamated side drawn from Old Belvedere, Terenure and Blackrock, against a visiting Naas side. This was followed by an under-16s girls’ match between another amalgamated side, the Vipers, and a team from Clane. Next, on the back pitch, came another top-of the table clash between Terenure and Old Belvedere in the J1 League. Terenure led Belvo on points difference but the latter went top after winning by a point with the last kick.

[ AIL: Little to separate Belvedere and Terenure atop Division 1AOpens in new window ]

After the men’s 1A game, a sizeable crowd stayed on the clubhouse balcony to watch the women’s AIL Division 1A game, when Blackrock’s 59-12 win saw them move above Old Belvedere on points difference on top of the table.

The veterans match between Old Belvedere and a combined Bective Rangers/Old Wesley side was actually moved to Energia Park where, as is custom, Campbell kicked off. He says he will continue to do so until the day the ball doesn’t go 10 metres.

Among the 2,000 or so crowd for the 1A table-topper was Thomas Gabriel, who had flown over from Vienna to watch his gifted son have an eventful game, never shirking the physical stuff as ever. On Sunday, they flew back to Vienna – where Caspar’s mum Kristine was itching to see her son too – for a week’s holidays.

Leinster’s initiative underlines why their clubs dominate the AIL.

For the first time ever last season, four Dublin clubs contested the Division 1A playoffs. This will be repeated this season. The seven Leinster clubs occupy the top seven places.

Socio-economic factors are working against the clubs from Munster, Connacht and Ulster. Terenure’s midfield featured two sons of Cork in the outstanding Peter Sylvester and Seán French. Given this, it seems extraordinary that Leinster were the first to come up with last week’s initiative.

Admittedly, the circumstances were ideal; with Ireland playing on a Friday and the provinces taking a four-week break, while the AIL also downs tools for the next fortnight.

Still, do Leinster have exclusivity on foresight? Munster left the players’ participation in the AIL up to themselves. Connacht’s players were granted nine days’ holidays. Save for releasing 11 academy players to Queen’s, Ulster’s players were also noticeable by their absence.

The attitude of the other provinces lacks vision and makes no sense. Munster, and to some extent the IRFU, have fiddled while their clubs have burned. They could have released even more players than Leinster who, after all, had 17 in the Ireland squad, whereas Munster had only two.

Young Munster, Ballynahinch and Cork Con occupy the last three places in Division 1A and there’s a real danger of either Ulster or Munster not having a club in 1A next season. Naas top 1B and it’s conceivable that 1A could have eight Leinster clubs next season. There is no Connacht club in the top two divisions. And the IRFU and the provinces do not help clubs by insisting senior contracted players must play in the top two divisions. This is handicapping the likes of Corinthians, Dungannon, Ballymena, Shannon and Galwegians.

If Leinster’s domination is expanded, David Humphreys and the IRFU may have to consider revisiting a David Nucifora-type plan ensuring each province is represented in Division 1A.

[ Referee Luke Pearce let rugby do the talking at the Aviva. More of that, pleaseOpens in new window ]

Whether the stars ever align again quite like they did last week is a moot point. But this initiative should be an annual occurrence and copied by the other provinces.

On Sunday morning in Ollie Campbell Park, like so many other grounds, volunteers were overseeing 300 kids playing mini-rugby. The club scene is the heartbeat of the game and is vibrant again. This is helped by the up-to-the-minute Myscore app and Final Whistle website, though not by the largely useless new irishrugby.ie, which has sacrificed a treasure trove of results and tables for a cheaper, shiny and shallow website. In this the union have ignored one of their responsibilities as custodians of the game.

gerry.thornley@irishtimes.com