The GAA and Rugby looked closer than ever in recent weeks when AIG’s sponsorship of the All Blacks and Dublin GAA enabled World and All Ireland Champions to sample each others skills.
The Association is also a key element in any Irish bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and news broke over the weekend about another partnership, at much more local level which could establish a template among clubs.
Blackrock College Rugby Club is independent of the school whose name it bears but is located close by in one of the few areas of Dublin where there is no local GAA club. That could be about to change with a memorandum of understanding signed between committees of the club and Cuala GAA, located across an already wide area from Shankhill through Dalkey and Sallynoggin to the edge of Blackrock.
The deal will enable both clubs to share the rugby club facilities at Stradbrook and to develop new pitches that will be suitable for GAA and for Rugby. These will include all weather and floodlit pitches that both clubs are currently paying third party sites for the use of.
Blackrock has 245 members but has struggled to maintain itself as a sustainable business in the more professional era that rugby is presently going through. It has built up debts which are threatening to swamp the ability of the members to manage.
Cuala has expanded rapidly over the past decade from a relatively small club of 300 to one that is now catering for 2,000 members and fielding 95 teams each week.
Both clubs are playing at or near the top level of their respective sports but need to grow the services and facilities they offer in order to maintain their position.
One of Cuala’s main rivals is Kilmacud Crokes who would be the closest other club to Blackrock and which would share membership in local schools and even families. It owns its own facility at Glenalbyn in Stillorgan whereas Cuala rents its pitches, at four separate locations from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
A shared facility with floodlights and all weather facilities will be major boost to the club which won the Dublin Minor Football Championship this year and which has eight players on the Dublin hurling panel.
The idea of a shared club facility is one that many might feel a sense of discomfort over but with the same grass, the same dressing rooms and similar other facilities across different sports, making the most efficient use of facilities will be in everyones interests.
Maintaining two strong clubs and allowing them to compete for the hearts and minds of the next generation of players is an important step for each club though it remains to be seen if this will be a universal view when the proposal goes to the membership of each club in the coming weeks.
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