Rugby Photos

This post is for a lot of old friends, specifically my old Rugby League friends. I maintain contact with a few of them through Facebook and recently Liam Horrigan asked whether I had any old RL photos in my newly discovered scanned folder. Well I didn’t but that’s only because I forgot that I had old rugby photos in a separate box. I have now scanned those in separately.

For those of you who do not know, I was a rugby player whilst I was at University. Specifically, I played Rugby League which is a little different than Rugby Union. I only started playing when I went to University at Staffordshire University but soon picked it up (I was a Gaelic Football player which really helped). Soon after starting I was selected to play for the Irish Student Rugby League team and I played several tournaments and games with them. I was captain for most of my games.

In 1995, Ireland decided to start its first ever Senior Rugby League team. They kicked it off with a fund raiser at Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester (home of Manchester United) and early the next  year (1995) we played Ireland’s first ever senior game against the USA on March 17th in Washington at RFK Stadium, home of the Washington Redskins. That game was shown live on ESPN2. I was the Captain of that first ever game and am very proud to say that we won, 22 to 24. I played eight additional games with the senior team before finishing.

I thoroughly enjoyed those days, the guys who I played with and the coaches, particularly Neil Wood who was instrumental in promoting Irish RL for many years. Today, RL is an active game in Ireland with a steady league and a very well respected senior team, the Irish Wolfhounds who are now an all professional group.

I have photos of my Student Ireland RL days posted here and my Senior Ireland RL days posted here.

Me in my rugby playing days!

Shown below in order is a flier for the game in Washington, signed by most of the travelling tour to the USA. The squad of players prior to the game, some celebrations after the game and specifically with Neil Wood who I mentioned above!