Numbers come up for cream of local talent
THE Nursing Building at DkIT was packed on Wednesday evening last as the cream of local schools rugby talent gathered to find out which of them had won coveted Deep River Rock Future Stars jerseys for 2018.
In all, 45 players from schools across the North East were initially nominated for a place on the team - three for each position - and readers of The Argus, Drogheda Independent and Fingal Independent then had the opportunity to have their say by voting for their Future Stars XV.
That made up 50% of the overall vote, which ran into the thousands, with the decisions of a panel of judges making up the other 50%.
An impressive 42 of the 45 nominated players were in attendance to see if they had been selected, along with a large number of their parents, and there was a great sense of excitement and anticipation as the countdown began to the naming of the team.
One of the coordinators of the night’s proceedings was Leinster Rugby community development officer and DkIT rugby development officer Ray McCabe. He was hugely impressed by the quality of all the players nominated.
‘Three years ago we came up with the idea of Future Stars,’ he recalled. ‘At the time we had a lot of GAA players here [in DkIT] and a very unsuccessful rugby team, but I was doing work in the local area in the secondary schools and so we knew that the talent was there.
‘We wanted to tell people that there is rugby in the college and that we give out scholarships.
‘In the time we’ve been running this initiative, the talent has completely gone through the roof. Last year I would have had two lads coming in on scholarships and we ended up getting to the All-Ireland final.’
The only disappointment on the night for some was that there were no players from Leo Cullen’s Leinster team available to make the presentations - understandably so as the squad continue their preparations for Saturday’s Champions Cup Final against Racing 92 in Bilbao.
But the nominees were delighted with the recognition all the same and the lucky XV selected for the 2018 Future Stars team had the added bonus of getting their hands on a specially commissioned Deep River Rock Future Stars jersey.
The winners represented seven different schools, and three of the recipients were being honoured for the second year in succession - Andrew Cox, Max McGloin and Joseph Mulholland.
‘The reason we go with jerseys instead of a trophy is that trophies tend to be put away somewhere on a shelf and forgotten about, whereas a jersey stays out on show, the lads have a story to tell people who see it, and it’s good publicity for the sponsors on the jersey as well,’ McCabe explained.
Other speakers at the presentation night were DkIT Sports Societies Officer Derek Crilly and IRFU Rugby Programmes Officer Colm Finnegan, who along with Ray McCabe instigated the DkIT Rugby Future Stars concept, together with North East Community Rugby Officer Billy Phelan.
Future Stars was supported by Deep River Rock, Leinster Rugby, CX+ Sport, DkIT and media partners The Argus, Drogheda Independent and Fingal Independent.