Leinster Rugby officially opened its new Ken Wall Centre of Excellence at Energia Park in Donnybrook yesterday evening. It is the first of five planned to be built around the province in the coming years.
The Centre cost €1.5m to build and was funded by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport’s Capital Funds Programme, the IRFU and by private investment from the Wall Family, Paul and Moya Coulson, H+K International and Brendan Mullin.
It will serve as a home base to the Leinster Rugby Sub-Academy as well as the Leinster Age Grade programme.
Ken Wall was a former CEO of Lombard and Ulster Bank and a long time local resident in Donnybrook. His daughter Moya is the wife of Aircraft leasing and property based businessman Paul Coulson.
The centre has been operational over the summer and has seen almost 4,000 players make use of the facilities which include a gym (210 sq. metres), two meeting rooms, a large open plan office with space for 20 staff, two dressing rooms and showers, a medical room and a kitchen.
The players who use the Centre will be supported by a multi-disciplinary team across a spectrum of areas that will be led by Simon Broughton in Rugby and David Fagan in Athletic Development.
“The Ken Wall Centre of Excellence would not have been possible without the significant support of the Wall family to whom we are most grateful and we hope that this Centre is a fitting tribute to their late husband and father Ken, a proud St. Mary’s College man,” said Leinster Rugby CEO Mick Dawson.
“To Minister Shane Ross and the Irish Government, to the IRFU and of course to all the generous benefactors that made this dream a reality, thank you.”
“This Centre is the first step in an ambitious programme of ours to have a centre in each of our five rugby playing areas, namely Metro, Midlands, North-Midlands, South-East and the North-East.”
“The Metro Area is now brilliantly catered for with a state of the art, modern facility in Energia Park and the plan now is to start work on the other four.”
“With news of the RDS Redevelopment hopefully not too far away, it is an exciting time for the future of Leinster Rugby and hopefully the future of the game across the 12 counties, not just for the professional team.”
“The investment of Sports Capital Programme funding by my Department in this magnificent new facility will be of tremendous benefit in developing rugby from grassroots to high-performance level,” added Minister Shane Ross.
“While much of the focus at the moment is on our international side, we must not neglect our upcoming stars and the players of the future in Leinster will benefit greatly from this investment.”
Leinster Rugby begin the defence of their Guinness PRO14 title this Saturday away to Benetton Rugby and will welcome the Ospreys to the RDS Arena on Friday, 4th October for the first home game of the season.
Image Credit: Seb Daly, Sportsfile
