‘An Amazing Feeling’ As Mullan Signs Off With Long-Awaited Title Win For Wanderers

It has been a long time coming for Wanderers to land All-Ireland League silverware, but this year they ended an 18-year wait by finishing top of the table and achieving automatic promotion to the third tier.

Eoin Sheriff’s well-drilled side delivered an exhibition of attacking rugby this term than many teams struggled to deal with, and all in Stan McDowell’s first year as the club’s director of rugby.

They registered 14 wins in 18 league matches, with 15 try-scoring bonus points accumulated and almost 600 points scored, and won the league with a round to spare.

Their success is all the more impressive given Division 2B of the All-Ireland League has been a competitive minefield for many seasons. Division 3 winners back in 2007, they have played Division 2 rugby for many years but Division 2A will be a new experience for them in September.

Mullan joined Wanderers in 2015, and has been a part of a decade-long journey to get the Dublin 4 club promoted. He is happy to sign off with their senior squad very much looking upwards and hopeful of building on this successful campaign.

“It still feels a bit surreal,” he admitted, speaking to IrishRugby.ie just over a week after winning the title with the Chaps, who had bounced back into the All-Ireland League in 2014 after suffering relegation two years previously.

“It’s been something the club has chased for so many years. To have finally won an All-Ireland League (division), it’s an amazing feeling, and to do it with such a great bunch of lads is even better.

“Winning the league at home against Clogher Valley (with a 42-7 win) was special. Merrion Road was hopping and to do it in front of all our families, friends, and club supporters was something you won’t forget.

“A huge moment for the club and it’s hard to believe we’ve gone that long without picking up an AIL trophy. To come off the pitch and see members who have been involved for 40 or 50 years with tears in their eyes, shows what it means to everyone.”

The 35-year-old second row grew up in Castleknock, with his early sporting days focused on Gaelic Games, and picked up rugby in his first year of secondary school at Belvedere College.

After that he played for a club close to home in the form of Coolmine, lining out for their Under-20s along with the senior team. But Wanderers FC has been his rugby home now for many years, and it has become a place very close to his heart.

This was Mullan’s ninth season proudly wearing the club’s blue, black, and white hooped colours, and his third as captain. In the words of his head coach Sheriff, he is ‘a natural leader whose commitment, work-rate, and drive inspires those around him’.

“It’s a massive honour for me personally to captain a club like Wanderers,” he said. “The club has so much history so it’s something I take great pride in.

“When you’re in the clubhouse you see the old pictures of the great teams and players of the past, and it makes you want to create your own piece of history for the club.”

Mullan has indeed created his own bit of history for the club now, and Wanderers’ league success was extra special for the former Leinster junior forward and four of his team-mates.

Mullan, Brian Vaughan, former captain Brian Quill, Eoin O’Shaughnessy, and Cian Doddy are the five surviving members of the Wanderers squad that gained promotion to Division 2B back in 2016, when the format of the All-Ireland League changed to what we know today.

There are two more long-serving players in Conor McQuaid and Aaron O’Callaghan, who both joined the following season. All seven of the aforementioned are pictured above with Wanderers’ Junior Vice President Ian Mahon, following the recent Clogher Valley game.

Since losing to Galway Corinthians in last season’s play-offs, Wanderers returned to action this season with full intent on taking Division 2B by storm, testablishing themselves as the early leaders. They had learned from previous campaigns how best to hold off Dungannon, their closest challengers.

“The win this year has been the accumulation of years and years of work both on and off the pitch. There’s those of us who were in the team that got promoted from 2C to 2B in 2016, and another few guys who came in the season after so we’ve been knocking on the door for a while now.

“Some years didn’t go our way but we always had the belief we were good enough to win or get promoted each year. The last couple of years in particular, we’ve added some really talented players to the team and everything just clicked for us this season.

A lot of credit has to go to our coaches Eoin, Conor O’Brien, and S&C with Mick McGrath. For the last couple of seasons we’ve been really dialled in.

“Our seconds team has been very competitive this year which has made a massive difference to previous years. Every Tuesday and Thursday training session was ‘full on’, and it pushed everyone to keep on top of their game.

“From round 1 we were top of the division and we were determined nothing was going to stop us this year. To be fair to Dungannon, they pushed and pushed and pushed us until the very end, it made us stay dialled in for the whole year.”

The celebrations in Merrion Road will certainly continue well into the summer, while plans are being made at the same time for a run in Division 2A. Many of those teams will be familiar to Wanderers, who are already relishing playing a higher standard of rugby.

While Mullan exits stage left, Wanderers have plenty of talented players coming through to look out for again next season. At 24, David Fitzgibbon is an excellent operator at out-half, and James Moriarty has also scored well, the pair contributing 94 and 74 points respectively.

Hooker Jamie Kavanagh finished with an 11-try haul this season, with the 23-year-old proving tough to stop when in scoring range. Full-back Jamie Murphy also racked up 11 tries, and is sure to be a key component of the back-line in the years ahead.

Mullan will be watchng on from the sidelines next season, and feels that Sheriff’s charges have the capabilities to make their own mark on Division 2A, drawing inspiration from the likes of Blackrock College and Instonians.

“Definitely exciting times ahead for the club. We know a lot of the 2A teams quite well after battling them over the years in 2B but the club will be looking forward to playing some new faces next year for sure.

“We’re hoping we can follow the likes of Blackrock and Instonians and really make an impact in 2A. We’ve brought in some great talent in the last couple years but the goal will be to kick on again next year.

“The club have done a great job getting the Under-20s in a really strong position and we’ll start to see some of these players come through in the next few years.

“But for sure, recruitment will play an important role to reach next season’s goals like it will for all other clubs around the country,” he added.

– Photos by Brendan Fogarty and Alex McLean

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