Conor Dean and Dylan Donnellan will captain their respective St. Mary's College and Clontarf teams in Sunday's final ©Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
The second part of the Energia All-Ireland League finals double header is a mouth-watering Men’s Division 1A decider between Dublin rivals St. Mary’s College, this season’s table toppers, and Clontarf, who are bidding to become back-to-back champions. Tickets are on sale here.
Sunday, April 26 –
For supporters coming to the Aviva Stadium, please note the following gates will be open from 12.30pm, ahead of the Women’s Division final which kicks off at 1.30pm:
For the West Stand, please enter via gate C
For the South Stand via Q
For the East Stand via O
For Accessible seating via A
Energia All-Ireland League Season’s Form: St. Mary’s College: WWWWWLWWLWDWWWWLLWW; Clontarf: LWWWWWWWWWWLLWWWLLW
Energia All-Ireland League Top Scorers – St. Mary’s College: Points: Mick O’Gara 192; Tries: Myles Carey 8; Clontarf: Points: Conor Kelly 138; Tries: Dylan Donnellan 18
Previous Energia All-Ireland League Titles – St. Mary’s College: 2 (1999/00, 2011/12); Clontarf: 4 (2013/14, 2015/16, 2021/22, 2024/25)
Preview: The third all-Dublin final in the last five years pits current holders Clontarf against St. Mary’s College, a club that is aiming to recapture their All-Ireland League glory days. Their current side, coached by Mark McHugh, have made rapid progress since coming up from Division 1B two seasons ago.
St. Mary’s last lifted top flight silverware in 2012, and since then, Clontarf have taken centre stage in the capital. New Zealander Andy Wood has been at the helm for their Division 1A title wins in 2014, 2016, 2022, and 2025, and remarkably this will be their eight final appearance in 10 years.
Last April Clontarf dethroned the then-champions Cork Constitution, denying them back-to-back titles just as Terenure College had done to the north Dubliners in the previous campaign. No club has retained the trophy since Shannon during their period of dominance between 2003 and 2006.
Having been edged out by Cork Con in a home semi-final last season, St. Mary’s signalled their intent by beating Clontarf 32-21 on the opening day back in September. They ended up with the same amount of wins as ‘Tarf (13), but their defence was the best in the division, conceding an average of 16.33 points per game.
McHugh has built a team full of pace, power, and precision, and one very deserving of this shot at league success. Captain Conor Dean, a clever attacker and distributor, and centres Mick O’Gara and Myles Carey have stood out in their back-line, with Bray man O’Gara’s accurate goal-kicking making him Division 1A’s top scorer with 192 points.
Like Dean, fellow former professionals Dan Goggin and Greg Jones have been just as effective in the forward exchanges. Goggin, at number 8, had a big influence on their rousing 20-13 semi-final defeat of local rivals Terenure. As did Josh Gimblett, a canny signing from New Zealand.
Vastly-experienced prop Tom O’Reilly, Mary’s scrum coach, comes in to start at loosehead, with Oisin Michel dropping to the bench. Andrew Sparrow from the Leinster Academy is held in reserve, while Richie Bergin, Ethan Baxter, and Mark Fogarty have also shown to be impactful replacements when introduced.
Interestingly, a good chunk of the 69 tries scored by St. Mary’s this season have originated from turnovers – 24 in all – but almost half have come from their reliable lineout platform (33). Clontarf’s maul threat is even greater, especially with captain Dylan Donnellan the ultimate finisher from close range.
53 of ‘Tarf’s 80 tries have originated from lineout possession, and eight each from tap penalties and turnovers. There seems to be no stopping Leinster-capped hooker Donnellan, who grabbed his 18th try in their 39-28 semi-final victory over Lansdowne. Remarkably, he has topped the division’s try-scoring charts for a fifth straight year.
In terms of the Clontarf selection, head coach Wood has made one enforced change as hamstring injury victim Peter Maher makes way for Alex O’Grady in the back-three. The latter’s brother Dylan, a lightning-quick Ireland Sevens international, starts on the opposite wing.
Leinster’s Hugh Cooney is back for more, a year on from his player-of-the-match heroics against Con, with Ireland Club XV out-half Conor Kelly another talismanic figure that knows what it takes to win on these big days at Irish Rugby HQ.
Ivan Soroka, Fionn Gilbert, who is Clontarf through and through, and Jordan Coghlan are key drivers of their bulldozing pack that already delivered the Energia Bateman Cup in December. A win tomorrow afternoon would see them join Terenure’s 2023 team in achieving a league and cup double.
Mary’s overcame Donnellan and his team-mates on two occasions during the regular season, mostly recently winning 14-10 at Castle Avenue thanks to tries from Fogarty and O’Gara. Will that give them a psychological edge, or will Clontarf’s big game experience at the Aviva Stadium matter more? Whatever way it goes, it should bring the best out of both sides.
ST. MARY’S COLLEGE: Ruairi Shields; Aaron O’Sullivan, Myles Carey, Mick O’Gara, Leandro Ramirez; Conor Dean (capt), Rob Gilsenan; Tom O’Reilly, Jack Nelson Murray, Mick McCormack, Greg Jones, Daniel Leane, Josh Gimblett, Ronan Watters, Dan Goggin.
Replacements: Richie Bergin, Oisin Michel, Andrew Sparrow, Conor Pierce, Ethan Baxter, Finn Burke, Mark Fogarty, Steven Kilgallen.
CLONTARF: Tadhg Bird; Dylan O’Grady, Hugh Cooney, Daniel Hawkshaw, Alex O’Grady; Conor Kelly, Sam Owens; Ivan Soroka, Dylan Donnellan (capt), Charlie Ward, Fionn Gilbert, Jim Peters, Paul Deeny, Aaron Coleman, Jordan Coghlan.
Replacements: Declan Adamson, Alvin Amaniampong, Richie Whelan, Michael Moloney, Dan Magner, Conor Gibney, Darragh Doyle, Conor Bateman.
Referee: Daniel Carson (IRFU)
Assistant Referees: Stuart Douglas, Oisin Quinn (both IRFU)
Television Match Official: Colin Stanley (IRFU)
Pre-Match Quotes: Conor Dean (St. Mary’s College) – “(Losing a home semi-final last year) massively fuelled us, especially the start of the kick-off of the pre-season. It just left a bad taste in our mouths, obviously just coming short.
“Maybe we were a bit naive coming into the semi-final (last year) because we had such a good run, we had great momentum, we had a home semi. There’s been a huge kind of motivation push from that.
“So close, but obviously so far away as well. So again, it was a big driver initially and then again, just setting our goals at the start of the year and having some key motivators throughout the season has been pretty big as well.
“It’s a huge honour to get the captaincy this year. If you look across the squad, like Ronan Watters, who did an unbelievable job of captaining the club for three years from where he brought the team or where the club was, even in general when he took over, to where he’s left off is chalk and cheese.
“It’s supposed to be great weather (on Sunday), which is always a plus. I think Clontarf, they’ve been setting the standard in the All-Ireland League for the last, well, for as long as I’ve been in the AIL.
“You know what to expect on their side. They’re going to be bringing their best. It’s going to be hopefully a great fixture and hopefully we can show up as well and it’ll be a great game.”
Dylan Donnellan (Clontarf) – “You can read into it as much or as little as you want. Other people will be looking at it and going, yeah, Mary’s beat us more recently and finished top of the table and they have the advantage. That’s a perfectly reasonable way to look at things.
“So, I suppose the advantages are what you make of it. Having some of us having played finals and been involved in finals over the years, does it stand to you? Yeah. If you get the job done, you can look back and say yeah, it stood to us. And if you don’t, then no, it doesn’t.
“I think that the best thing, obviously, is from the last couple of finals that we’ve been involved in, there’s probably been the lowest amount of turnover, which is great. So there’s a lot of lads there who have the experience.
“On the other hand, there’s a lot of new guys in the squad as well who have never been to a semi-final or never been to a final. You just make sure that they know what’s coming. I suppose just be excited for it more than anything because, look, it’s the best day in club rugby, so you have to enjoy it.
“I think the weight of expectation is something that maybe people in the club might put on you. When you’re in a club like Clontarf and you’re successful, quite a lot of the time when you’re there or thereabouts, there’s probably a weight of expectation regardless of what’s happened the year before.
“Using last year and a bit of cup experience, great, but it is a new team and it’s a standalone game, new opposition. So you still have to get out and get the job done. It’s expectation again, it can be a positive or a negative depending on how you frame it in your own mind and up to the individual, how they do that.”
Recent League Meetings – Saturday, September 27, 2025: St. Mary’s College 32 Clontarf 21, Templeville Road; Saturday, April 4, 2026: Clontarf 10 St. Mary’s College 14, Castle Avenue
IrishRugby.ie Prediction: St. Mary’s College to win
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.
This website uses cookies.
Read More