2024 West Cork Sports Club of the Year won’t rest on its laurels as it looks to the future
CLONAKILTY Rugby Club rounded off a remarkable 12 months by adding the 2024 West Cork Sports Star Club of the Year Award to their bulging trophy cabinet.
The 2023/24 Munster Rugby junior club of the year has come a long way from humble beginnings. Now boasting a state-of-the-art 4G astroturf pitch at their Shannonvale home ground and record club membership, this trailblazing West Cork set-up continues to go from strength to strength both on and off the pitch.
Their latest accolade is a huge honour, according to new club chairman Neville Burton.
‘Every award is obviously a fantastic honour,’ Burton stated at the awards night at the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery.
‘We won the Munter mini’s Club of the Year a few years ago and the Munster Junior Club of the Year this past year.
‘This one is special. It’s local, it’s West Cork and it’s prestigious. It is a great honour. There are some high calibre winners around us in the Celtic Ross Hotel tonight. We are humbled to be included in that mix and very appreciative of it.
‘It gives us a sense of reaffirmation that we’re heading in the right direction and people recognise what we’re trying to do is positive.
‘We certainly didn’t set out to win awards. I think they are a by-product of us working hard with the right values and right ideas. Of course, we’ll take the awards when they come! So we are delighted to win the West Cork Sports Star Club of the Year.’
A total of 800 male and female registered players, 100 volunteer coaches and approximately 100 committee and sub-committee members underlines Clonakilty rugby club’s remarkable growth. Buy-in from local businesses and surrounding communities has laid the foundation for further growth.
‘Our main and long-standing sponsor is Clonakilty Black Pudding and we have an additional 90 annual pitch-side sign sponsors plus a huge amount of goodwill from the local community providing services in kind and always willing to help us out,’ Burton explained.
‘Our club will be 50 years in existence in two years’ time. I’m only a blow-in and have been involved with Clonakilty Rugby Club for 15 years now. That’s only a third of the journey. There have been some tough years and I arrived probably in the midst of some of those.
‘So, certainly when I came in, it was a rebuilding phase, like any club, ups and downs, good years, bad years. We’ve been very lucky. We’ve had some good people and some really energetic, passionate and enthusiastic coaches and committee members.’
Representing 2024 Celtic Ross Hotel West Cork Sports Star Club of the Year winners, Clonakilty Riugby Club, were, back from left, Jimmy O’Regan, Garrett McCabe, Alfie Achison, Paul Baker, Emmet Nolan, Colm Quirke, Henry Miles, David Mason, Denis Noonan, Ivor Bateman and Olan Deane. Front from left, Helen, O’Hea, Sinead Burton, Mary Collins, Teresa Oliver, Eabha Egan, Nev Burton, Vicky McCabe, Gabrielle Leahy, Kate Nolan, Alannah O’Brien, Hannah O’Leary, and Marissa Coombes.(Photos: Martin Walsh)
One of the 2024 West Cork Sports Star Club of the Year Award winners’ most positive traits is their continuing efforts to promote inclusivity and playing time ahead of results.
‘There has been a very conscious effort to grow rugby as far and wide as we can, to make it as inclusive as we can. That was huge for us, to make it inclusive and restart a schoolgirls section which has become a huge success,’ Burton said.
‘We want to give everybody the opportunity to play rugby, to develop through it, and the ethos of not always putting victories ahead of meaningful playing time. It is all about participation for our younger age groups certainly, not streaming too early. It does seem to be paying dividends.
‘We also have a lot of initiatives going into the schools and running summer camps, blitzes and doing a lot of things to attract more people to our club. We wouldn’t hold those if we didn’t have the right product and that was built on inclusivity. I think that’s been a huge concerted effort to get us to a place where our numbers are really strong now.’
Refusing to rest on their laurels, Clonakilty RFC is coming to the end of a successful five-year development plan and about to embark on an exciting blue-print of similar length.
‘We are at the end of a five-year plan and just sitting down now to talk about our next five-year plan, which of all the items we start prioritising first,’ Burton added.
‘We’ll be beavering away off the pitch and beavering away on it, hoping to go to even greater heights.
‘Once our current works along the (adjoining) roadway, new walkway and new car park are finished, we will move on to new things. On the pitch, we want to see the transition of that huge pipeline of young talent that we’ve been building for the last decade transition into our adult set-up. We need to make sure that our coaching structure is the best that it can be so we can start succeeding at adult level in the same way we did before. We want the club’s adult men and ladies teams to go as far as they can.
‘There is a long list of things to achieve off the pitch as well including building new girls changing rooms as well as additional parking. The list goes on but so will Clonakilty Rugby Club.’
