Spreading the rugby gospel
Bolger bidding to leave positive impression on children
YOU MAY know him as Mick, you possibly know him as Mike, and if you’re not involved in rugby, there’s a good chance that you don’t know him at all. In primary school we simply knew him as Michael.
Michael Bolger is someone I always had the utmost respect for. Michael was a rugby lover before it was cool to love rugby.
He carried himself like a rugby player; he wasn’t necessarily big in stature but was always unflinching, strong as teak.
Despite the fact that we went to a primary school that was immersed predominantly in G.A.A., we almost never played anything other than soccer at breaktime.
Michael was a full-back and someone you always wanted on your team. You could leave him out there unprotected; it was his island and he controlled it as such.
Inevitably, you lose touch with what others are doing as the years go by, but it came as little surprise to next see him again on a rugby field, coaching young men, passing on his experience in the game that shaped his life.
‘I was ten or something when I started to play,’ Michael remembered, ‘ so I’m 26 years in the game. You still kind of remember that early exposure as where you formed yourself, you developed a love of the game and wanting to give back to the community.
‘From a personal point of view there were certain things that influenced me. I was lucky enough and I’m sure everyone is in the same boat, I was influenced by some really good quality coaches at that age.
‘I was quite lucky that my dad was involved, so I had that little bit of extra motivation that he was there. Then just a couple of other guys like Maurice Logue and people like that who I looked up to in a big way.
‘As I got a little bit older, Gordon D’Arcy was coming onto the scene as a young player and to be related back to Wexford Wanderers, he came through to a certain extent there, for me personally it had a big influence in that I wanted to play rugby.’
Playing was all well and good, but Michael wanted more. He always saw his future in sport, and deep down he hoped it would be in rugby.
But when he went to W.I.T. to study recreational sports management and later a Master’s in sports and exercise psychology, jobs just weren’t as plentiful in the game.
Still, the hard yards were done in the learning department, and rugby started to go into a transition from borderline niche sport to hugely popular the length and breadth of the country. Eventually an opportunity arose and Michael took his chance.
‘I was involved with Leinster as a strength and conditioning coach. I worked with the development teams, the Under-16, Under-17 area development teams, I suppose with an eye to hopefully taking a step forward within the rugby realm, waiting for an opportunity.
‘Essentially I was at training one night and I was lucky enough to be approached by someone, “there’s an opportunity there, would you like to apply for it?”
That was with Gorey Rugby Club and I haven’t looked back since. I was there for a couple of years, and I’ve moved across to Enniscorthy now.’
That job is C.C.R.O., or Club Community Rugby Officer, but neither give anything like a proper indication of what’s involved.
If you have children in the schools around the Enniscorthy district, it’s likely they have mentioned their tag rugby training with Michael, but there’s far more to it than that.
‘We partner with primary and secondary schools in the Enniscorthy area,’ Bolger explained. ‘So, anywhere from Blackwater to Bunclody, Oulart and that kind of general circumference.
‘What I’m trying to do with them is foster some kind of rugby-playing culture there, give them some exposure, let them know it’s fun, let them know it’s safe, and just try to leave a positive impact from that point of view.
‘The overall aim is obviously to get people playing rugby, to get a ball in their hands and playing, ideally playing with Enniscorthy Rugby Club because that’s who I’m affiliated with.
‘But bigger picture it’s about putting the ball in their hands and hopefully at some stage they will give back to rugby in some way, shape or form, be that going to games and paying for tickets, or be that playing the game, coaching or refereeing, or whatever it needs to be.
‘I might go to [say] Davidstown primary school, I’ll take their second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth class individually or combined classes, depending on the size of the school, and they will have somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes of tag rugby and different activities that way.
‘Then I spend a certain amount of the week trying to develop or run programmes outside of that then, so it might be stuff more linked with the county council, more linked with community-based programmes.
‘So, something I do with the county council is, I help with the return to education programmes. There’s the L.T.I. in Courtown, we run an eight-week course with them which is based around rugby but essentially it’s a lifestyle-type course.
‘It’s all going through the medium of rugby, it’s fairly relaxed but it’s just about getting something to put on their C.V. and developing them as people as well.
‘It’s a kind of three-pronged thing, the last part of it is the club itself. Within the club then I’m there to help the development of the club, the coaches and the players. Players will have various pathways.
‘The better or more talented players might develop onto the Leinster pathway. Within a club, what we try to look at is to have some kind of pathway. If you can recruit a kid at six or seven years of age, what’s their pathway to keep them to be senior players?
‘So, that’s my job within the club to try to keep them involved, keep them interested. Part of it is working with the players, part of it is working with the coaches, alongside people like Declan O’Brien, Kieran Hurrell, people who are senior coaches in the club, offering these coaches C.P.D’s, the opportunity to work with us.
‘Maybe I’ll go down and hold tackle bags for kids, but they see me there and in schools, it gives a different face to things. Then just helping to run events with the club, there might be a fun family day for the minis in September, we might do a transition year game between F.C.J. Bunclody and the E.V.C.’
Away from the job description, things don’t stop there for Bolger, proving a coach’s job is rarely finished.
‘There are huge other parts. I work with the coaching development side, I’d be a tutor on the stage one, two and three course that is not necessarily part of the job, it’s just something I do because of my level of experience within Leinster.
‘There’s a huge amount between working with county councils, working with the club, working with the schools, and other bits and pieces that tend to get tacked on.’
While he has seen a growth in numbers over the years he’s been involved in the game, explaining that Enniscorthy recently only had teams at every second age range at under-age level, but now it’s one for each year, Michael has noticed another big difference with youngsters in recent times.
‘The quality of what we are seeing now,’ Bolger explained. ‘ They get so much exposure, not just through someone like myself and the clubs, they are seeing it on TV and with Leinster doing so well, and there are so many heroes with the likes of Sexton and these types of guys that some of these kids are coming out at ten, twelve years of age and they are all experts in rugby.
‘They are passing the ball ten or twelve metres, they are kicking off both feet, that’s where I’m seeing a huge development is their ability and that kind of thing. Maybe five or six years ago you were seeing the numbers coming in but not quite the same level of understanding [of the game].’
But now everything is on hold, and Michael continues to work away at home on his C.C.R.O. duties as best he can.
Having stepped away from the role of Wexford Wanderers first team head coach last season, he was relishing a new task with the Leinster women’s Under-18 squad this term before the curtailment.
One thing is for sure, when schools start up again, when children get back to throwing a rugby ball around the fields of Enniscorthy, Michael Bolger will be the reason why.
And if the traits he showed as a youngster rub off on them all these years later, they will be all the better for it.