By Jamie Ryan

Rugby is quickly becoming one of Ireland’s most popular sports – but has often been viewed by many as ‘upper-class’.  

This is because a large majority of home-grown professional Irish rugby players have come up through the school system, which is heavily featured by fee-paying schools – particularly those who rose through the Leinster ranks.  

The pinnacle of school-boy rugby in the East of Ireland, is the annual Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup – which is hotly contested by sixteen teams from across the province.  

This has been dominated since its inaugural competition in 1887, by Blackrock College with 71 Senior Cup titles respectively.  

De La Salle Churchtown was the last public school to claim Senior Cup glory back in 1985 – an achievement that has become increasingly more difficult to beat, as private schools have swept up every title since.  

Back in 2014, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), appointed former Australian hooker, David Nucifora, as their High Performance Director. Since then, the IRFU have invested heavily in rugby playing private schools across the island with the aim of producing an athlete that is already prepared and has exposure to high intensity and pressure rugby by the ages of 18 or 19. 

Schoolboy rugby in Ireland has become noticeably more professional in recent years with how these young players are expected to commit, train and diet, while also balancing their education. 

This has put these players in a great position for when they graduate from schoolboy rugby to adult grades, however, the reason for rugby’s reputation as a posh sport is arguably because of these fee-paying schools having more funds at their disposal to dedicate to their school’s team. 

This has no doubt played a vital role in many of these schools’ success while also reiterating the belief that rugby is upper-class by many, as the majority of public schools do not have the privilege of this financial backing. 

Ryan McCormack, 18, played rugby right throughout his secondary school days with Temple Carrig, a public school is Greystones, and currently plays club rugby for Greystones Rugby club. “Rugby in private schools is such a culture – the players are given so many resources because they can afford to pump as much money into the sport as they want which adds to the idea that it is a posh sport,” he said.  

“Blackrock College for example has nine rugby pitches, one of which being an astro turf. They have put so much money into gathering the best coaches and providing players with the best facilities at their disposal. It allows those players to get ahead of the curve but at the end of the day, it is worth nothing unless the player themself is willing to hard work and is determined to make it to the professional rugby scene.” said McCormack. 

“I have been to many schools’ games with the likes of Blackrock, Clongowes, St Mary’s, and Belvedere and there are always at least three Leinster staff watching out for talent, but for other public schools’ games, there are very rarely Leinster development officers or scouts in attendance. There are far too many exceptionally talented players who have been overlooked due to where they play,” McCormack further explained.  

While it is difficult to argue against the prioritisation of this focus given the results that have been achieved by the Irish team because of this system, many feel that it can appear from the outside looking in to be elitist and excludes young rugby players from reaching a professional level if they came through the club system or the public school system. 

While this system clearly produces results for the national squad, it is also heavily catering to Leinster on an inter-provincial front – far more so than Munster, Ulster or Connacht due to the pure quantity of private schools in Dublin particularly.  

On the island of Ireland, there are 30 private schools that play rugby with 12 of these being in Leinster, 6 in Munster, 6 in Ulster and 3 in Connacht.  

This rhetoric does, however, seem to be slowly changing slightly in that interest in rugby is at an all-time high in Ireland thanks to the recent success of Irish Rugby in international competitions, but also in club competitions such as the URC, the Champions Cup and also in the AIL (All Ireland League). 

Jamie Osborne has been one of the most recent examples of a player breaking the mould by rising through the juvenile ranks with his boyhood club, Naas, to now representing Leinster and Ireland but in recent times, playing coming from a non-private school system has been a rare sight.  

Irish rugby fan Andrew Jones, 23, said: “It kind of sends a message really, doesn’t it? The best way for a player to get to that level is to go to a private school, which is unfair when you consider that where someone goes to school doesn’t tend to be their choice. As soon as that elitist aspect is brought to anything, there can also sometimes almost be a distaste toward the sport itself in certain areas.” 

The IRFU has over the last number of years, been developing a series of strategic plans to promote growth in the game across the country beyond just the confines of just South Dublin and other surrounding areas’ private schools. 

The promotion of the game in areas where rugby is not as popular would aid in combatting this ‘posh’ reputation that it currently has, as it would be more freely available for those who want to get involved.