Donnellan: Becoming The First ‘Tarf Team To Win It Would Be Unreal

Champions walk with a different kind of weight. At Clontarf FC, it settles on the shoulders quietly, like the winter sea mist rolling in from the bay. Familiar and unspoken, but always there.

This Saturday as the Energia Bateman Cup final descends on Castle Avenue (kick-off 4pm – live on irishrugby+), that weight sharpens into something else entirely. Expectation, pride, and the burning chance to carve another chapter into a club already steeped in history.

No one feels that more than the player captaining the Clontarf senior Men’s team once again into battle this weekend, for just their second ever Bateman Cup final appearance.

Dylan Donnellan grew up far from here, in Galway, alongside a different coastline, under a different sky. But his life now is anchored in the north Dublin air.

The hooker, who recently turned 31, is a Clontarf figurehead, a talismanic forward and a prolific try scorer whose name is stitched into the club’s fabric.

Since the start of the 2021/22 campaign, he has scored 83 tries in the Energia All-Ireland League – finishing as Division 1A’s top try scorer in each of the last four seasons – and been capped by Leinster and the Ireland Club XV.

A leader, a heartbeat, a constant presence in a team that has dominated at the Bullring with a mixture of steel, self-belief, and quiet ruthlessness.

Now he stands on the edge of something the club has never accomplished. Clontarf have never lifted the Bateman Cup before, and as a double-header, there are also crucial league points to add to their tally to continue their Division 1A title defence.

“It’s something that we’ve got our eyes on where it’s just an opportunity for silverware, an opportunity for points in the AIL,” Donnellan told IrishRugby.ie. “So, it’s absolutely great being able to double them up and make a big occasion of it.

“That big occasion isn’t being taken for granted down here. It is another trophy at the end of the day. It’s also league points, it is a big occasion and I suppose it’s a historic competition. ‘Tarf have never won it.

“So, it’s something that the club, I’m sure, will take great pride in trying to get over that line and to lift it on Saturday evening.

“Once we knew we were in it, having won the league last year, we set our eyes on it straight away. And like that, the first group to win it for the club would be unreal. Looking forward to it.”

Clontarf have waited a long time for a return to this stage. Their only previous Bateman Cup final appearance was in the 2014/15 season, when they defeated Saturday’s opponents, Ballynahinch, in the last-four before falling to Cork Constitution in the decider.

The trophy is one of the oldest in Irish Rugby, a relic of a different era. Winning it would not just be an achievement, but an inheritance. A mark on the club’s lineage. That is why the atmosphere this week has felt different. Not panicked. Not tense. Just charged.

Castle Avenue has been a fortress this season. Andy Wood’s men are nbeaten at home in Division 1A, and have strung together seven wins in a row in the league. Their last home defeat in the top fight was in October of last year.

Although no one inside the ‘Tarf dressing room is foolish enough to assume that past form predicts a final, it builds the belief that this team knows how to rise when the moment demands it.

For Donnellan, it is also personal. An opportunity to give something back to a place that has shaped him in the last number of years.

“It would be a nice thing to be able to give back to the club again if we win it. They’ve done so much for me, so much for all the lads on the team over the course of our careers with the club.

“So, to be able to try and bring another bit of silverware back to the club would be unreal. You can see the group that came down to Nenagh last weekend, there was about 20 or 30 of them down on the Friday night.

“Stayed down out and about there for the game last Saturday, stayed down again. When you’ve got that kind of support, you want to pay it back as much as you can.

“A bit of silverware, nice and early in the season, would help to pay those lads back for following us all around the country.”

For a man born in Galway, who began his rugby with Galway Corinthians at the age of six, it is that support that has made Clontarf a home away from home. The supporters are familiar faces, recognisable voices. People he knows by sight and handshake.

They are part of the gravitational pull that kept him here, that convinced him and his wife Gemma to buy a house in the capital, and now, on the cusp of a final that doubles as a league match, he feels the club pulling together again.

It is a funny one because it’s a final right in the middle of the season, it might not have as big a build-up as a final towards the end of the year because you’re obviously just in the midst of the AIL. I wouldn’t say it’s added pressure to us that it is at home.

“It’s probably kept us quite level-headed because obviously you’re busy right up to it in terms of league matches, you’re being kept busy and you don’t have the time to dwell on it.

“It being the last one before Christmas obviously means you can give it the respect it deserves and kind of go out on a high for that break midway through the season.

“So, from our side of things, I think we’re just really looking forward to it and just trying to do something historic for the club and get another bit of silverware in the cabinet.”

There is nothing in his voice that hints at complacency. Nothing casual. Nothing presumptive. Instead, there is clarity. This season did not start smoothly for Wood’s charges with a defeat away to current leaders St. Mary’s College, and Donnellan does not pretend otherwise.

“It was a fairly disappointing start to the season, there against Mary’s, just testament to the quality of the team they are. Obviously, when you’re integrating a couple of new faces, which we are this year, it does take you a little bit of time to get going.

“Those lads are well ingrained now and are motoring away. I suppose testament to them and the way they’ve settled into the club, and I suppose that’s been reflected in the last couple of games.

“Obviously, on a bit of a winning streak now, it’s great for the club and you do take confidence from it, but it’s great for those new lads as well, coming in just to get used to what we’re doing and obviously start positively in a Clontarf jersey as well.”

That early stumble seems distant now, absorbed into a run of form that grew in strength every week. The semi-final victory over Nenagh Ormond in Lisatunny, where Clontarf had to find something extra to book their ticket, was another reminder of what this group is made of.

Since that loss away to St. Mary’s, they have gone about their business well. They will need that clinical edge and resilience against Ballynahinch, a team that has given them bruising, tight, uncompromising battles for years.

“A final in itself, it’s a one-off game, it’s a one-off result. And then obviously you’ve got the added benefit or added pressure, whatever way you want to look at it, of it costing you league points as well,” acknowledged, Donnellan, who works as a Field Sales Manager with Lennox Laboratories.

“So, look, it’s double the risk, double the reward kind of thing. I suppose you put whatever positive or negative spin on it that you want in that regard.

“If you look at the way Ballynahinch have been going, I think bar one result, they’ve been right up there with the top teams. They’ve been putting scores on teams when they’re struggling, when they’re off the mark on the day.

“They’re a quality outfit. They’ve been kind of there, thereabouts now for semi-finals for the last couple of years. So you can’t take last season into it, definitely not.

“Definitely not underestimating them in any way, and I think the final probably just helps kind of solidify the mind there and just get you right for it.”

The rhythm of the All-Ireland League means Clontarf know Ballynahinch’s habits, their strengths, the physicality they bring, the tempo they try to set. But the final adds something different.

It wipes out context. It strips away momentum. It sharpens focus. This weekend is not part of a long season, it is a moment in isolation.

“Take the final out of it, the last game of this half of the season, where you can get a true reflection of where you stand at the midway point.

“Obviously, then we’ve had some really tough battles with ‘Hinch over the last couple of years. We drew up there with them the season before last. There’s been some really good games between the two of us.

“It’s a massive occasion even without that, and then obviously you have that chance to make a bit of history into it. It really just makes it a big day for the club.

“That one before Christmas is always big anyway. You get a good crowd down, groups of lads using it as their get-together in the club, which is great. It just means there’ll be a good crowd there and make for a good occasion hopefully.”

With that, the stage is set for Saturday’s heavyweight showdown at Castle Avenue. Prestigious All-Ireland silverware and a league fixture brings plenty of drama, history balanced with expectation, a home unbeaten record meeting a challenger hungry for its own breakthrough.

No one at Clontarf Rugby Club speaks in grand predictions. No one presumes anything. But there is a quiet energy in the club this week, something steady and rising.

Something that says this group understands the moment that waits for them. The wind may whip through Castle Avenue before kick-off, but the cold will not matter. Not with what is at stake. That is the beauty of Clontarf on days like this, the sense of belonging stretches far beyond the pitch.

On the sidelines will be families, with old players mixing with former team-mates, with groups who use this pre-Christmas fixture as their annual reunion. A community stitched together by generations of rugby, shared memories, and winter evenings under the floodlights.

For Donnellan, that community is no longer something new to him, it is home. For the captain who has put down his rugby roots in north Dublin, Saturday could mark yet another crowning chapter of the story he has written with the Bulls.

“Ever since I was here (initially in 2016), they’ve taken me in like I was one of their own. The effect that the place has had on me after buying the house here, I’m not leaving anytime soon. Whether that’s good or bad for the club, I don’t know!

“It would be fantastic to be able to give back to them. They’ve been so good to me, so to be able to bring a new trophy to the club would be amazing. And being captain just makes it that little bit more special,” he added.

Keep up to date with all the latest news in our dedicated website hub at www.irishrugby.ie/energiaail, and follow #EnergiaAIL on social media channels.